
BookJl^s^Ls: 

CopyrightN .. 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSE 




Jesse R. Kellems. 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 



AND OTHER SERMONS 



BY 



JESSE R. KELLEMS, A. B. (Orefcon), B. O. (E. B. U.) 

A Minister of the Churches of Christ 



WITH INTRODUCTION 
BY 

GEORGE L. LOBDELL, A. M. f D. D. 



"When I survey the wondrous cross 
On which the Prince of fclory died, 
My richest &ain I count but loss, 
And pour contempt on all my pride." 



CHRISTIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 
ST. LOUIS, MO. 






Copyright, 1914, by 
CHRISTIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 



SEP 13 1915 

0CLA41O676 
*4i 



DEDICATION 

'T'O my father, Professor David C. Kellems, 
of the Eugene Bible University, and my 
mother, Louisa Flint Kellems, whose loving 
sacrifices have made possible whatever accom- 
plishment may have been mine in the service of 
Christ, and to my wife, Vera Edwards Kellems, 
whose beautiful Christian character and faithful 
love have ever inspired me to the highest 
endeavor, this little volume, the author's first, 
is affectionately dedicated. 



Preface 

At the earnest and frequent solicitation of my many 
friends made in my pastoral and evangelistic work 
in Oregon, Washington and California, I have in the 
following pages published in permanent form the 
four sermons which have been most kindly received 
in the various fields in which I have labored. Each 
message represents several years of careful thought 
and research. My apology for whatever inaccuracies 
may be discovered in the technique of expression is the 
rightful demand made upon my time by continuous 
service in the evangelistic field. In the effort to give 
each sermon in as nearly as possible the same words 
used in its public delivery, the popular style has been 
followed throughout the book. 

I desire here to acknowledge my debt to those who 
have aided in giving to the work its proper form. To 
Professor John Straub, A. M., L,itt. D., Dean of the 
College of Literature, Science and Arts of the Uni- 
versity of Oregon, and to Eugene C. Sanderson, D. D., 
LL.D., President of the Eugene Bible University. I 
am especially indebted for their many kind sugges- 
tions relative to the first two sermons. For other 
helpful assistance I also gladly mention C. W. Jop- 
son, A. B., B. S., minister of the Church of Christ at 
Concord, California; George W. Brewster, B. D., 
minister of the Church of Christ at San Jose, Cali- 



PREFACE 

fornia, and Victor M. Hovis, A. B., minister of the 
Church of Christ at Lodi, California. I must also ac- 
knowledge my obligation for his help in many ways 
to James H. McCallum, my very dear friend, who 
was associated with me in my first year of evangelistic 
service as soloist and personal worker. 

In the hope that this simple little volume may 
prove to be a blessing to those who read its pages, the 
author joyfully sends it forth. 

Jesse R. Keixems. 
Nov. 30, 1914. 



Contents 

Page 

Introduction 9 

I. Glorying in the Cross 13 

II. Heu, 47 

III. The Divine Name 75 

IV. The Miraculous Christ 105 



Introduction 



In Paul's second letter to Timothy he exhorts him 
to continue in the things which he has learned, know- 
ing from whom he has learned them, and he reminds 
him that from a child he has known the Holy Scrip- 
tures which are able to make him wise unto salvation, 
"through faith which is in Christ Jesus." 

I am sure that the author of this book of sermons 
is like Timothy, mindful of his earliest teaching by a 
noble woman of God, who, from his infancy, yea, and 
even before he was born, prayed earnestly day and 
night that her son should be used mightily of God in 
declaring the wonderful gospel of salvation through 
Jesus Christ. To his mother he is indebted for his 
inborn desire to preach the Word. Neither will he 
forget to credit his father with the splendid train- 
ing he received from early childhood in the art of 
presenting in the most attractive and forceful form, 
the great themes of the gospel, that he might be a suc- 
cessful winner of souls. 

Responding readily to these efficient and godly 
teachers, he began preaching at the early age of fifteen 
years, and today, while still a boy in his twenties, he 
can rejoice with the thousands who have listened to his 
fervent proclamation of the gospel message and be- 
come obedient followers of King Jesus. 

Realizing the value of great faith in the cardinal 
doctrines of the early church, he has labored faithfully 



INTRODUCTION 

to bring to his auditors the well established truths con- 
cerning the sonship of Jesus, and hence His power to 
fulfill His promises to dying men. His sermon, "Glory- 
ing in the Cross," is intended to stimulate faith in the 
essential fact of the atonement, without which our 
faith would be in vain. His sermon on "Hell" is a 
wonderful grouping of facts and logical arguments by 
Blackstone and other great men, showing the infallible 
proofs of future punishment, which punishment is as 
inevitable for the transgressor of God's laws as that 
night will follow day. Being early taught with the 
writer of Acts that, "there is none other name under 
heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved," 
he has labored diligently to bring to the minds and 
hearts of men the wonderful name of Jesus Christ as 
the potent factor in the accomplishment of every 
divine purpose. Following this is the climactic sermon, 
"The Miraculous Christ," which exalts Christ among 
His brethren and reveals Him as God manifest in 
the flesh. 

I have known this young author and evangelist 
from his early childhood and have watched his de- 
velopment until today, after a happy experience with 
him in one of the greatest meetings ever conducted in 
the history of the Stockton Church of Christ, I find 
joy in writing the introduction to his first book of 
sermons, and am praying that it shall go forth on its 
mission of exalting the Christ and stimulating faith 
in the hearts of all who read its live message. 

G. L. Lobdeix, A. M., D. D. 

Stockton, California, Nov. 9, 1914. 



I 

GLORYING IN THE CROSS 



I 

Glorying in tKe Cross 



"But far be it from me to glory, save in the cross 
of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world 
hath been crucified unto me, and I unto the world." 
Gal 6:14. 

Those to whom this statement was addressed were 
a fickle, changeable people. With the hot, impetuous 
Gallic blood bounding through their veins, they were 
apt to be a people of moods; now enthusiastic, now 
plunged into the depths of despondency. Caesar re- 
lates that the Galatians, relatives by blood to the Galls, 
ancestors of the modern French, were an extremely 
credulous people; believing everything that was told 
them, no matter how absurd the story might be. 
Traveling men were ofttimes detained and requested 
to tell the experience of their journeyings. Becoming 
acquainted at last with the credulity of the Galatians, 
these traveling men enlarged and magnified their nar- 
ratives until at last they were telling marvelous tales, 
some of them utterly beyond the pale of possibility. 
Their listeners, open-mouthed, swallowed down every- 
thing that was said and believed it until another story 
was told them. With such a people, then, is Paul 
dealing in our text. Some Judaizing zealots had come 
from Jerusalem and had, by their smooth words, per- 

Thirteen — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

suaded the Galatian Christians that Paul was a false 
apostle and the gospel which he had with so much 
labor taught them, was an incomplete gospel because 
it refused to recognize the Christian religion as simply 
at sect of Judaism. Bitter was the anguish of Paul 
when he heard of their apostasy. In righteous indig- 
nation he writes unto them the letter from which our 
text is taken. The customary pleasant introduction 
with which he prefaces the major portion of his other 
letters is here omitted. He plunges at once into a ma- 
jestic vindication of his divinely received apostleship, 
and scathingly anathematizes anyone and everyone, 
even to an angel from heaven, who shall dare preach 
any gospel other than that which he has preached unto 
them. After his lucid exposition of the relation of 
the Law and Grace, in the concluding chapter of this, 
the most fiery of all his letters, he utters the splendidly 
loyal sentiment of our text, "Be it far from me to 
glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." 
The foolish Galatians may wander as they wish after 
strange doctrines, or chase, in their blind folly, delu- 
sive phantoms ; but as for Paul, for the cross he must 
stand and in the cross must he ever glory. Like a 
rock encircled by foam-crested seas he remains, while 
the stormy winds of doubtful doctrines lash to 
apostasy and ruin his children in that noble faith, 
"once for all delivered to the saints/' 

One of the most universally recognizable elements 
of man's nature is his inherent desire to worship 
something. Every nation has its God. Individuals 
there have been, but never a nation of infidels. Every 

— Fourteen 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

man worships something, whether he be willing to ac- 
knowledge that worship or not. If man receives no 
revelation of God, he will make for himself a god. If 
the true God is unknown to him, he deifies the in- 
animate objects around him. He is always striving 
to realize the character of God more fully. In im- 
patient desire to see God from closer viewpoint, the 
Israelites became apostate to their faith and "bowed 
the knee to Baal," or made for themselves an idol of 
gold. In his attempt to know God, and as showing his 
desire for worship, the Athenian filled Athens with 
thirty thousand deities, and then in fear lest any should 
have been overlooked, he erected an altar, "to the Un- 
known God." The African aborigine still fingers his 
fetish and mutters his prayer to the god within its 
hideous form. The turbaned son of India, and his 
brother of China, still philosophize, as did for cen- 
turies their fathers before them, concerning the axioms 
of Buddha or Confucius. On the dreary wastes of 
Arabia, as the blazing sun stands for a moment sta- 
tionary at the zenith, the Moslem, with face turned 
toward Mecca, murmurs his monotonous prayer to 
Allah, the supremely wise and good. The American 
Indian has sung of his Great Spirit and the happy 
hunting grounds, while his heliolatrous brother to 
the south has chanted his weird incantations and 
performed his strange rites before his god, the sun. 
The Greek has had his Zeus and Hera; the Roman 
his Jupiter and Juno. The sacred bulls of Assyria, 
the river gods of the Egyptians, the hideously carved 
totems of the Alaskan Indians are but still other ex- 

Fifteen — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

pressions of a tangible nature of the divinely im- 
planted desire in man to know God, to worship him, 
"to seek after him if haply they might feel after him 
and find him." 

Today men worship various, and sometimes even 
to themselves unrecognized, gods. I have met men 
in my own experience who though they blatantly 
denied the very existence of the Christian's Jehovah, 
and though they claimed that they had no gods, were 
nevertheless the most slavish worshipers of deities of 
their own creation. 

In a popular magazine one time appeared a cartoon 
which exactly illustrated the relation of men today to 
the strange gods which exercise such iron rule over 
the hearts of so many of them. A long line of 
pedestals stretched away into the distance. On the 
top of each stood an image. Over the heads in their 
order were written the names, Gold, Fame, Fashion, 
Family History, Nationality, Intellect and so on, un- 
til the names were imperceptible in the distance. Be- 
fore these gods kneeled hordes of adoring worshipers 
with outstretched hands and eager, bright faces. Oh, 
how mad is the worship of strange gods and how al- 
luring ! 

In this address it is our purpose to consider in de- 
tail some of these false objects of glory and to inquire 
into Paul's reasons for glorying in the cross. 

I. False Objects of Glory. 

1. Glorying in Men. — Hero-worship has been a 
sin of all the ages. Popular heroes arise and an ad- 

— Sixteen 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

miring populace accords to them rapturous praise 
and burdens them with laurel wreaths. It was hero- 
worship that made Caesar a dictator; it was hero- 
worship that would have crowned Jesus a temporal 
king. As a beloved hero, Peter became the legendary 
first pope at Rome. It was hero-worship that shouted 
hosannas over Apollos and Cephas, Barnabas and 
Paul. It was the same blind admiration that generated 
the first seeds of division and discord in the Corin- 
thian church, where loving more his apostles and 
ministers than they did the Christ, they were heard to 
say, "I am of Paul and I of Apollos and I of Cephas." 
(1 Cor. 1:12.) Hero-worship made Napoleon coun- 
cillor-dictator, then Emperor of France. Hero-wor- 
ship paved a path of glory for him across the sum- 
mits of the hoary Alps, crowned him with honor and 
victory beneath the frowning gaze of sphinx and pyra- 
mids, shielded and protected him from Russia's frozen 
plains, and received him with demonstrations of 
boundless affection in every hamlet of the Empire. No 
sacrifice on the part of even the smallest drummer 
boy in the ranks was too great for the "Little Cor- 
poral." Defeated, crushed, beaten back from the 
lines of red, like broken waves from the foot of granite 
cliffs, the white-coated squadrons of the old guard, 
though they could not surrender, could die and with 
the joyful shout on every lip, "Vive 1' empereur." 
For the love of one man France sacrificed her man- 
hood, prostituted her virtue and glutted herself to 
satiety with the blood of Europe, Africa and Asia. 
Upon the altar of an insatiate, wicked and impos- 

Seven teen — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

sible ambition she gladly offered her wealth, her 
honor and her blood. 

While we shudder at the wholesale slaughters of 
Napoleon, while we, in our Anglo-Saxon superiority 
of blood, condemn the impulsive Frenchman for a 
blind hero-worship which would allow a Napoleon to 
lead him headlong into the sunken road of Ohain at 
Waterloo, are we, after all, free from this sin our- 
selves? Have we not exalted our military heroes and 
lauded them with praise many times closely akin to 
worship ? 

If we are not glorying in our political heroes we 
glory in our preacher or our leader in religious work. 
Some people's faith is pinned to their preacher's coat- 
tail. Instances are numerous where upon the removal 
of a minister from one place to another, some church 
members who had been very devout and attentive 
upon every church service at once lost their fervor. 
The trouble with such people is that they are wor- 
shiping the preacher rather than Christ; they are 
glorying in men. 

In writing to the Corinthian congregation, that 
church so addicted to the sin of worshiping the preach- 
er, Paul exhorts, "Wherefore let no one glory in men. 
For all things are yours ; whether Paul, or Apollos, or 
Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things pres- 
ent, or things to come; all are yours; and ye are 
Christ's; and Christ is God's." (1 Cor. 3:21-23.) In 
the first part of the same chapter in which he makes 
this statement he asks, "Who then is Paul, and who is 
Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as 

— Eighteen 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

the L,ord gave to every man?" (1 Cor. 3:5.) In the 
first chapter of his first Epistle Peter tells us why we 
should not glory in men when he writes, "All flesh is 
as grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of 
grass. The grass withereth and the flower fadeth." 
(1 Pet. 1 :24.) Man is like the grass; he grows, flour- 
ishes for a little time, then the shades of death's night 
enfold him and he is gone. James asks, "What is 
your life? For ye are a vapor that appeareth for a 
little time and then vanisheth away." (James 4:12.) 
How soon is one man forgotten ! And compared with 
the whole race of man how insignificant is the life 
of one individual ! Hero-worship is a false object of 
glory because it prevents men from a full and com- 
plete reception of Christ, their only hope. 

2. While some are glorying in men others are 
boasting in party or faction. 

Paul might have done this, for he belonged to the 
mightiest sect among the Jews. He might have with- 
drawn himself in haughty grandeur from others and 
walked with the Pharisees alone. To be a Pharisee 
was in the eyes of his time, no mean distinction; and 
he might, with proper pride, have boasted of his af- 
filiation, but not one word of the kind does he utter. 

Men today glory in their sects, their parties or 
their factions. There are instances where this spirit 
has even entered the Church of God. Ofttimes we 
find congregations divided up into different cliques 
formed along lines of family or social position. When- 
ever the clique spirit enters at the front door of a 
church the Christ Spirit departs through the back 

Nineteen — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

door. The two can never dwell together in harmony. 
The party or faction spirit is invariably provocative 
of heartache, strife and dissension. Paul says, "For 
whereas there is among you jealousy and strife, are 
ye not carnal and do ye not walk as men?" (1 Cor. 
3:4.) No faction church can live, for as the body 
without the soul is dead and useless, becoming a 
stench in the nostrils of men, so that church without 
the Christ spirit of harmony and brotherhood has be- 
come a dead carcass, an offense in the sight of God. 
The sooner such a church dies and is buried the bet- 
ter it will be for the cause of the Redeemer. 

3. Another false object of glory is a sinful pride 
in family or nationality. 

We love to boast of our connection with "the first 
families of Virginia" or of the fact that we are "sons 
and daughters of the American Revolution," or that 
we are "native sons and daughters of the Golden 
West." With profound satisfaction we talk of our 
"blue blood." To belong to an aristocratic family is 
with many the most glorious of all desires and ambi- 
tions. For titles and so-called noble blood we sell our 
girls to dukes, lords, counts and no-accounts of 
Europe's decrepit ari-stuck-up-racy. 

To be a member of a noble Christian family, one 
honored and revered because of sterling character, is 
indeed a distinction not to be lightly esteemed. There 
should always be a just feeling of pride accompanying 
such honor. One so fortunate should ever put forth 
the most strenuous endeavors to exalt his family name 
by pure words and noble deeds. When, however, a 

— Twenty 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

family pride degenerates into a Pharisaical, aristo- 
cratic boastfulness ; when it builds itself into a bar- 
rier of caste ; when it becomes destructive of the demo- 
cratic brotherly spirit, then it is black sin. Aris- 
tocracies there are of blood, of fame, of wealth, of 
education, but the noblest of all is the aristocracy of 
character, and that one who can remember that his 
ancestors have been honest men, clean men, God- 
fearing men can delight himself with the conscious- 
ness that he belongs to the loftiest and noblest of all 
earth's great. Paul was descended from one of the 
most famous families of his race, yet he never men- 
tioned his family position, as an object of glory. 

One other god that many worship is that one who 
bears the name nationality or race. By accident of 
birth, a matter over which they had absolutely no con- 
trol, they are members of an honorable race or citi- 
zens of a powerful nation. Paul might have gloried 
in his nationality and citizenship, for he was by birth a 
Jew, but by citizenship a Roman; a citizen of Tarsus, 
and Tarsus was "no mean city." Roman citizenship, 
with all that it implied, the protection of the mighty 
fleets and unconquerable legions of Caesar, the free- 
dom, the distinction, the honor, all were Paul's. But 
do we ever find Paul using his good fortune as an 
object of glory or boasting above his fellows? Never! 
In Jerusalem we do find him crying out before the 
Centurion as that officer is preparing to inflict upon 
him the terrible lash, "Is it lawful for you to scourge 
a man that is a Roman and uncondemned ?" (Acts 22 : 
23.) But this use of his citizenship was merely as a 

Twenty-one — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

matter of self-preservation, and not an attempt to 
glory in it. Before Felix we find him saying, "I am 
standing before Caesar's judgment-seat, where I ought 
to be judged; to the Jews I have done no wrong, as 
thou well knowest. If then I am a wrong-doer and 
have done anything worthy of death, I refuse not to 
die; but if none of these things is true whereof they 
accuse me no man can deliver me up unto them. 
'Caesarem appello', I appeal unto Caesar." This use of 
his right of appeal to the throne was not, however, for 
purposes of glorying in this most precious of all 
Roman privileges, but rather that he might be per- 
mitted to proclaim the glorious Christ message in the 
glittering palace of the emperor himself. 

There can be no sin in a man having a proper 
pride in his nationality. One ought to be proud of 
his blood. Why, in my own case, if I were not Irish 
I would be ashamed of myself all the rest of my nat- 
ural life. And I have but little respect for anybody 
who is not proud of his race. What Englishman is 
there who does not feel a patriotic thrill at the ma- 
jestic strains of, "God Save the King," or what 
Irishman who cannot see the lovely scenes of the 
beautiful little green isle as the wailing, weird notes 
of "Come Back to Erin" are borne to him? Or what 
Frenchman is there whose blood does not run a little 
faster and his cheek burn as the martial music of 
"The Marseillaise" rings out, recalling deeds of glory 
and valor? What German is there who cannot see 
the crag-banked river of the Fatherland when his de- 
lighted soul expands to the crashing notes of "Die 

— Twenty-two 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

Wacht am Rhine?" or feel the hot war blood bound- 
ing through his every vein as he hears the ambitious 
music of, "Deutschland iiber alles?" Patriotism, love 
for the homeland, is innate in every human heart. 
The very sight of the national emblem or the music of 
the nation's hymn will inspire the grandest emotions 
of rapture and delight in the heart of the truly patri- 
otic, and will prompt him with the poet to say: 

"Breathes there a man with soul so dead, 
Who never to himself has said, 
This is my own, my native land?" 

Certainly one of the sublimest of emotions is that 
patriotism which means a love of country and a fer- 
vent desire to make one's homeland better and nobler. 
When, however, that patriotism blinds us to the virtues 
of other nations and makes us unable to recognize 
their services to civilization, then it becomes narrow 
and bigoted and loses all of its beauty and power for 
good. 

As Americans we have long cherished a feeling of 
racial superiority, an idea that we were rather the 
best people upon the earth, the acme of civilization, 
the highest attainment of all the ages of human ex- 
perience. In relation to ourselves we arrange other 
nationalities upon a perpendicular scale, with the 
Englishman next to us, then the German and the 
Frenchman, and at the bottom, underneath all of the 
rest, we place the poor Chinaman. Every American 
boy who has ever gone swimming well remembers that 
the first boy in the water was always an American, 

Twenty-three — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

the next an Englishman and so on until the last, and 
he always wore a pigtail. 

We should remember that others have done things 
as well as we. England has a larger navy than we 
and a greater Empire. Germany's Universities are 
more famous than ours and she leads the world in 
many phases of manufacture. France still dictates 
the fashions to our women, while Italy leads all in 
art and music. Even poor old China had lived a 
long life as an Empire and had evolved a high state 
of civilization long before we were even thought of 
as a nation. 

The anthropologist, in his comparison of the vari- 
ous races, does not arrange them on a perpendicular 
scale, but rather on a horizontal ; for to him one race 
is just about the equal of another in native ability and 
in the services rendered to civilization. 

I have often thought that it would be a splendid 
lesson for us if we could only see ourselves as others 
see us. If we could but get the other fellow's view- 
point sometimes we would not be so egotistical about 
our racial superiority. The following extracts from 
letters written by visiting foreigners will serve to 
show us their view of us. 

A very cultured gentleman from India, a graduate 
of the University of Calcutta, once made a visit to 
San Francisco. As he walked the streets he experi- 
enced varied and strange sensations. His brilliant 
turban and generally peculiar attire provoked great 
amusement among the army of small boys which had 
quickly gathered about him. Without the least show 

— Tzventy-four 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

of politeness they pelted him with stones and made 
sarcastic remarks about his attire. This hilarious 
and unexpected reception prompted the following 
statement in a letter to a friend in India : 

"America is a strange country and the Americans 
are a strange people. Their treatment of the stranger 
is very harsh and inconsiderate. The little boys throw 
stones at you as you walk along the street and annoy 
you with impolite remarks about your clothing. Let 
us not, however, judge them too severely, for America 
is but a new country. When the American nation be- 
comes as old as India then we will expect that she 
will be at least partially civilized." — The view of the 
American as expressed by the gentleman from India. 

A refined gentleman from Pekin, after an extended 
visit to the United States, sent the following descrip- 
tion of American customs to his people : 

"The Americans are the funniest people in the 
world. They tear their food with pronged instru- 
ments like the wild beasts. They never use chop 
sticks in the cultivated fashion in vogue among us. 
In America the order of nature is changed and woman 
is exalted to a position of equality with man. Why, 
in America I have actually seen women dragged about 
the room in the arms of men and to the accompani- 
ment of very hellish music." — The view of the Amer- 
ican as given by the gentleman from Pekin. 

A petty patriotism which causes us to regard 
other races and nations as our inferiors is in direct 
opposition to the very spirit of the religion of Jesus 
Christ. The King's command is, "Go ye therefore and 

Twenty- five — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

teach (or make disciples of) all nations, baptizing 
them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, 
and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all 
things whatsoever I have commanded you; and lo I 
am with you always even unto the end of the world." 
(Matt. 28:19, 20.) In his interpretation of the Par- 
able of the Sower he says : "The field is the world." 
Just before his ascension we hear him saying as re- 
corded by Luke, "Thus it is written, and thus it be- 
hooved Christ to suffer, and that repentance and re- 
mission of sins should be preached in his name unto 
all nations, beginning from Jerusalem." (Luke 24: 
46, 47.) Or again, the same message as given in Acts, 
"And ye shall receive power after that the Holy 
Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my wit- 
nesses both in Jerusalem and all Judea, in Samaria 
and unto the uttermost part of the earth." (Acts 1 :8.) 
In obedience to these words it is recorded of the dis- 
ciples after the persecution and scattering which 
arose over the stoning of Stephen, that, "those that 
were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the 
word." (Acts 8:4.) The invitation which they gave 
to lost and inquiring sinners by the authority of 
their Master was the one which he himself extended 
when he said, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and 
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." (Matt. 
11:28.) Or "Whosoever will, let him come." The 
spirit of Christ was the glorious world-wide spirit of 
the story of the cross for all men. How grandly 
cosmopolitan are the words used in declaring this 
spirit. "All nations! Every creature! Judea, Sa- 

— Twenty-six 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

maria, the uttermost part of the earth ! All ye that 
labor and are heavy laden ! Whosoever !" Such ma- 
jestic words as these recognize no petty racial bar- 
riers ; no social walls erected by selfish party or caste. 
Most gloriously does Paul describe the whole con- 
gregation of those redeemed by the blood of Christ 
when he writes to the Galatians : "There is neither 
Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there 
is no male or female, for ye are all one man in 
Christ Jesus." (Gal 3:28.) In Christ all men are 
to be brothers, no matter what the color of their 
skin, the language which they speak or the social 
position which is theirs. It is the spirit which "Bobby" 
Burns so beautifully portrays when he exclaims : 

"Then let us pray that come it may. 
As come it will for a' that — 
That sense and worth o'er a' the earth, 
May bear the gree and a' that. 
For a' that, and a' that, 
It's comin' yet for a' that, 
That man to man the warld o'er, 
Shall brothers be, for a' that." 

Some men there are who glory not in those false 
objects which we have considered, but their god is 
the god of gold. They boast in their material pos- 
sessions. To such money is the only thing in the 
world at all worth while, so they prostitute even the 
nobler gifts of the soul, they bend every energy to 
the acquiring of gold and silver. As they continue 
in their worship so absolute becomes their bondage 
that many forget all else in their insatiate mania for 
the acquisition of the glittering coins. 

Twen ty-seven — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

In France, years ago, an old miser was accustomed 
each night to shade the windows of his lonely moun- 
tain dwelling and with the light turned low gleefully 
count and recount the growing heap of golden coins 
which he had acquired by years and years of toil. 
As the days went by and the hoard grew, although he 
was far from the homes of men, still his suspicious 
heart was filled with the constant fear of discovery; 
so he descended into his cellar and there in the gloomy 
light of a tiny candle he would come every night for 
an hour of worship before his beautiful coins. But 
day by day the haunting fear grew upon him ; so 
he digged a subterranean vault under his cellar and 
secured it with a huge iron door. When the evening 
shades began to settle down upon the mountains, 
stealthily down into the dark vault would he go. 
The flickering rays of the candle wavered upon the 
great pile of yellow 'metal before him and a golden 
gleam flashed back, sending thrills of delight through 
his tense nerves. His eyes became hard and bright 
as he bathed his bird-like claws in the glowing mass. 
As the jingling circles slipped through his trembling 
fingers and rolled over his withered arms he hoarsely 
croaked, "Aha, my beauties ! My beauties !" Clang ! 
Like a thunder bolt hurled from the very courts of 
heaven the great iron door crashed upon him. Like 
to the rich fool of Jesus' day the voice of God seemed 
to thunder into his frantic soul, "Thou fool, this 
night thy soul shall be required of thee !" A few 
years ago beneath the ruins and rubbish of the old 
mountain castle the rusty iron door was found. When 

— Twenty-eight 



GLORYING IN THE GROSS 

it was lifted from its decaying hinges, a terrible sight 
greeted the gaze of the horrified discoverers as they 
bent forward and with their lights entered the direful 
pit. One hand of the skeleton still clutched the glit- 
tering coins, the other held the remnant of a burned- 
out candle. From the heap of bones that topped the 
golden pile there flashed a baleful yellow gleam. It 
was the old, old picture of the ruin of one who had 
sacrificed his life and soul upon the altar of the 
heartless god of gold. Nothing but bones ! Nothing 
but bones ! 

Oh, man, insane with the love of money, crazed 
with the race for it, stay for a moment your mad rush 
and hearken to the words of him, who, though the 
heir to marvelous riches of all earth and heaven, 
could say, "A man's life consisteth not in the 
abundance of the things which he possesseth." Or, 
again hear him as he asks, "What shall it profit a 
man if he gain the whole world and lose his life?" 

As the hundreds lounged or danced upon the 
spacious decks of the proud Titanic, or as they drank 
or smoked in her luxurious barrooms, or chatted 
and laughed in her stately saloons, few of them were 
bothering themselves about the eternal things of God. 
While the great vessel sped swiftly over the calm, 
cold sea, they laughed and sang or talked and drank 
without even one thought of approaching danger. 
When the sickening crash came and with incredible 
rapidity it was reported from man to man, "We have 
struck an iceberg," they laughed and said, "What care 
we? We ride in an unsinkable ship. We are rich, and 

Twenty-nine — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

all that could be done to make us comfortable has 
been done ; all that luxury could demand is here. Let 
us return to our pleasures, for we are safe." It was 
not until the monster throbbing engines had been 
forever stilled by the inrushing hungry sea; it was 
not until the mammoth prow had begun to settle to- 
ward its last, long resting place, and the icy waves 
had begun to wash the broad decks that the band of 
that huge coffin of fifteen hundred lives played, 
"Nearer, my God, to Thee." In those last awful 
minutes they remembered God. Oh, how sadly their 
trust was misplaced! How disappointing, soul- 
damning is the blind worship of "the things which 
man possesseth." 

There are some men who glory in intellect. They 
boast of their so-called learning, of their theories and 
philosophies. Paul might have done this, for he was 
one of the brightest scholars of his time. He had 
been educated in Jerusalem at the feet of the learned 
Gamaliel. But we do not find him glorying in this 
good fortune. Although thoroughly acquainted with 
the philosophies and so-called sciences of his time 
we find him writing to the Corinthians, "And I, 
brethren, when I came unto you came not with the 
excellency of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to 
you the testimony of God. For I am determined not 
to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and 
him crucified." (1 Cor. 2:1-2.) And he was ever firm 
in his decision not to glory in his worldly wisdom. 

I have met men of the sophomoric age, otherwise 
known as the doubting age, who have said to me, 

— Thirty 



GLORYING IN THB CROSS 

"Mr. Kellems, there is no room for faith. With 
me everything must be judged at the bar of reason. 
If a proposition cannot be satisfactorily demonstrated 
to my intellect it will be impossible for me to credit 
it as fact. I never accept anything on faith alone." 
Time was when such a statement was supposed 
to be indicative of brilliancy on the part of the one 
making it. We are, however, in this age changing 
our opinion of the one who speaks in such terms. 
Every proposition which a man credits without him- 
self having seen it demonstrated is accepted on faith. 
Only those things can w T e know which we have seen; 
all others must be credited by faith. We believe that 
there was a revolutionary war because the evidence 
to support that belief is so conclusive, so unanswer- 
able that we must accept it. But it is because of our 
faith in the historical accuracy of the man who col- 
lected the material and compiled a history of that war 
which causes us to believe the accounts given. Some 
of us believe in the nebular hypothesis because we 
have faith in those who claim that they have demon- 
strated the truth of the theory to their own satisfac- 
tion. Illustrations of this type might be multiplied 
indefinitely, but these are sufficient to convince us 
that the vast majority of things that we unquestion- 
ably regard as facts are accepted because of faith. 
Having faith in some man who we think is more ac- 
curately acquainted with a certain branch of knowl- 
edge than ourselves, we accept his conclusions con- 
cerning those things which we have never investi- 

Thirty-one — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

gated. Practically all of science, history, philosophy, 
etc., is accepted on faith. 

And is there not a reason why we cannot demon- 
strate to our own minds all of these things? What 
ordinary man has time or opportunity for such demon- 
stration? We are so busy in this work-a-day world 
earning the bread we eat and the clothes we wear 
that we could not do it even if we would. As 
Emerson has so aptly described our life, "Things are 
in the saddle and do ride mankind." Because of the 
dominance of things we are forced to accept these 
things on faith if we accept them at all. The ma- 
jority of us have neither time nor opportunity to 
demonstrate them to our own minds. 

Another makes the objection, "Mr. Kellems, the 
religion of Christ is so divided and sectarian that it 
is almost impossible for anyone to believe in it. 
What is he to accept as good and reject as bad from 
the conglomerate mass of creeds and beliefs calling 
themselves Christian?" In a word, a divided Christen- 
dom leaves no room for faith. But even though we 
acknowledge and deplore the sad condition of the 
church of God, yet Christ's redeemed are not so di- 
vided as the illustrious readers of science, and we 
still retain our beliefs in science. Division among 
scientists does not destroy our faith in science. A 
few instances illustrating these disagreements might 
here be in place. 

In discussing the problem of the origin of life 
Sir William Thomson, before the British Associa- 
tion, said, "Life came from a meteor." His theory 

— Thirty-two 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

lived a year. Concerning the same problem Huxley- 
says, "L,ife originated from a sheet of gelatinous liv- 
ing matter covering the bottom of the ocean." His 
theory lived only a few months. 

A few years ago the historians were unanimously 
agreed that Troy was a myth. Professor Schlieman's 
discoveries have blown up the myth theory and have 
established beyond a reasonable doubt that Troy was 
really a city and that the reported deeds of valor 
enacted there were at least partially true. 

The temperature of the interior of the earth is 
estimated by some to be 1,530 degrees, by others 
equally authoritative 350,000 degrees. Herschel 
claims that the mountains on the moon are a half a 
mile high, while Ferguson says that they are fifteen 
miles high. Some authorities tell us that the height 
of the aurora borealis is two and a half miles, while 
others, equally famous in their field, claim that it is 
one hundred and sixty miles high. 

Lyell says that the delta at the mouth of the Mis- 
sissippi was 100,000 years in forming, while General 
Humphrey, of the United States geological survey, 
estimated the age of its formation at 4,000 years. 

If there is room for faith in science, even among 
the disagreements of men of science, is there not 
room for faith also in Christian teachings, even 
though sometimes Christian scholars should disagree, 
especially when that disagreement is in regard to 
mere trifles and not over those beliefs that are truly 
fundamental ? 

But how foolish is this attitude which says, "I 

Thirty-three — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

will accept nothing unless it is demonstrated in a satis- 
factory manner to my reason !" How little we really 
know and how little of the knowable can we com- 
prehend ! How inadequate is reason in the battle 
with some of the great problems of the universe ! 
We cannot comprehend the infinitely great, neither 
can we comprehend the infinitely small, When we at- 
tempt to explain some of these innumerable problems 
we stand confused and stunned. 

Consider, for instance, Alpha Centauri, the star 
nearest to our earth. The astronomer tells us that 
it is twenty billions of miles away. Can one demon- 
strate twenty billions of miles? Can he close his 
eyes and think out or see that distance? We ex- 
perience difficulty, if we try to think out or demon- 
strate one hundred miles and when we say twenty 
billions we are simply uttering meaningless words. 
A man's intellect simply goes smash as does an tgg 
against a stone wall, when he trys to think of twenty 
billions of miles. What does this enormous number 
mean? Light traveling at the rate of 186,300 miles 
per second, which would mean that it would traverse 
the distance around the earth 7^4 times in a second, 
took 4y 2 years in making the journey from Centauri 
to us. If some gigantic cataclysm should occur by 
which Centauri would be destroyed, we would not 
be conscious of its destruction until more than the 
life-time of a presidential administration had passed. 
If you wished to take a little journey to the star, and 
if you traveled at the rather rapid rate of sixty miles 
per hour, it would take you just 38,051 years to 

— Thirty-four 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

reach your destination. Can one reason these things 
out? Can one by his intellect master the magnitude 
of the distance? 

The most distant star which our astronomers have 
yet discovered is estimated by them to be 5,000 light 
years away. A light year is equal to that number of 
miles which a ray of light would travel in a year. If 
you will multiply 186,300 by the proper figures you 
will find a light year to equal five trillions, eight hun- 
dred and seventy-five billions, one hundred and fifty- 
six millions, eight hundred thousand miles (5,875,156,- 
800,000) ; multiply this number by 5,000 light years, 
the distance to the remotest star, and you will have 
twenty-nine quadrillions, three hundred and seventy- 
five trillions, six hundred and eighty-four billions of 
miles, or a number containing seventeen figures 
(29,375,684,000,000,000). If you wished to take a 
little trip to this star and you travel at the excit- 
ing rate of 100 miles per hour, in a little over thirty 
billions two hundred and two millions of years you 
would be there. Are we able by the puny power of 
intellect to grasp this distance? 

The physicist tells us that a ray of light vibrates 
with quite a marked degree of speed. The exact 
number of vibrations per second has not been de- 
termined as yet, but it is somewhere between four 
hundred million millions and eight hundred million 
millions per second. There are a good many stars, 
planets and other heavenly bodies in the universe, 
as you will readily agree if you have ever tried to 
count them. Herschel claims that he counted 116,000 

Thirty-five — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

stars as they passed before his telescope in a quarter 
of an hour. I knew two boys who got into a fight 
once and one of them in the mix-up saw 306,842,300 
stars in one second ! 

The earth is quite old. Some geologists estimate 
its age at ten millions of years; others think that it 
is a thousand million. The most probable age is 
35,000,000. A man 65 years of age isn't even an in- 
fant compared with the age of the earth. 

We might go on and on, ad infinitum, multiplying 
a thousand illustrations of the great problems of the 
universe and then scarce exhaust the supply. Can 
a man understand them? Can he see them? When 
he tries his intellect becomes stunned and dumb. The 
expressions of these great problems are to the ma- 
jority of us mere meaningless phrases. 

But consider some of the problems presented by 
some of the smaller objects of this earth. Once I 
entered a laboratory and under the lens of a microscope 
I placed a single drop of water. As I looked a thrill 
of delight shot through me, for there before me 
glistened a great pearl, more beautiful beyond com- 
parison than anything I had ever seen before. I 
changed the slide, placing it this time under another 
and more powerful microscope, and as I gazed I fell 
back in astonishment, for there before me lay a com- 
plete world. A thousand living forms sported in the 
limpid depths; perfect organisms they were in a 
realm all their own. As awe-struck I looked, I won- 
dered, "Are they perplexed about questions of law 
and government, capital and labor, church and state, 

— Thirty-six 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

as are we ?" Suddenly from behind a great rock there 
emerged an animal larger than his companions, and 
with his great tusks be began to kill and devour the 
terrified inhabitants around him. Beholding the battle 
I smiled and said to myself, "The old, old law ob- 
tains here, I see, the law of the survival of the fittest." 
I wonder if all the drops of the millions of cubic miles 
of water upon this earth were added to my drop un- 
der the microscope how many animals or insects or 
bugs or microbes would we find living, eating, fight- 
ing, dying as their so-called big brothers, men ! How 
many do you suppose you swallowed this morning, 
and with relish, when you partook of that dainty 
breakfast which the wife prepared with so much 
care? Oh, we might continue forever telling of the 
problems, but can we understand them ? No ! No ! A 
man can spend a life studying leaves or rocks and 
then only dip into the sea of those things which might 
be known about them. 

Why should a man glory in his intellect? What 
does he really know? What is mind? What is mat- 
ter? Why, we do not know even the substance of 
things ! John Stuart Mill tries to define mind as, 
"The permanent possibility of sensation." A very 
fine and lucid definition. "The permanent possibility 
of sensation!" It reminds one of Mark Twain's defi- 
nition of a Kansas cyclone. He said that a Kansas 
cyclone was "an acute disturbance of aerial molecules 
which is injurious to animal life." Goethe despairs of 
defining mind or matter singly but slays, "Matter can 
never exist and be operative without spirit, nor spirit 

Thirty-seven — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

without matter." With Goethe agrees Schleicher, 
"There is neither matter nor spirit in the customary 
sense but only one thing, which is at the same time 
both." The late Professor Clifford ludicrously at- 
tempts a definition of matter in the terms, "Mind- 
stuff," and Alexander Fairbairn, in his "Philosophy 
of the Christian Religion," well describes the attempt 
as, "despairing, but descriptive." The noted Profes- 
sor Bain, agreeing with Goethe and Schleicher, says 
that matter and mind constitute "one substance with 
two sets of properties ; two sides'', the physical and the 
mental, a double unity." One learned doctor says 
that matter is a combination of molecules which 
bump together. But what is a molecule? Oh, a 
molecule is "the smallest quantity of an element or 
compound which can exist separately." But that does 
not define a molecule, and if we are unable to define 
a molecule we can't possibly define the substance of 
matter. Such a definition as this is the same as if 
one were to describe or define the word "mule" as "a 
long-eared quadruped with active heels and a re- 
sounding bray." What is a book made of? The 
chemist tells us that it possesses so many parts oxygen, 
so many of hydrogen, etc., but that does not tell us 
what it is. The substance of mind and matter we 
cannot explain. In our definitions we tell how mind 
acts or describe the appearance of matter, but we 
fail and are at sea when we try to define the sub- 
stance of either. About the be9t definition I have ever 
heard was the one given by Professor Edmund S. 
Conklin, Ph. D., of the department of philosophy at 

— Thirty-eight 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

the University of Oregon. He said, "Mind and mat- 
ter are simply terms applied by us to phenomena the 
substance of which we cannot comprehend." 

And yet knowing so little of things as men do, 
will they boast and glory in the power of intellect. 
Let him possess a sheepskin tied about with a yel- 
low ribbon, and a man is a being of the most profound 
learning. Why should we boast of what we know 
when what we do not know is of such magnitude that 
merely to think of it is enough to stun the intellect? 
How finite we are, and how fallible is the mind ! How 
absurd is the learning and pride of man when com- 
pared to the knowledge of God! Paul wonderingly 
writes to the Corinthians, "The foolishness of God 
is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is 
stronger than men." (1 Cor. 1:25.) 

II. Why Paul Gloried in the Cross. 

Why did Paul glory in the cross, that blood- 
stained instrument of execution and agony ; that which 
was to the Jews a stumbling block, to the Greeks fool- 
ishness ? Paul was a forward-looking man. He could 
see beyond the pride, the egotism, the terrible im- 
morality of his day and behold the eternal things of 
God. Spurning worldly ambition, pride of intellect, 
the so-called learning of men; he boasts he places 
his glory in that horrible object of suffering and 
death which crowned Calvary's mountain. "God for- 
bid," or "far be it from me to glory save in the cross 
of my Lord Jesus Christ." And why, oh, battle- 
scarred veteran of the King? 

Thirty-nine — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

1. Because, in the first place, the cross is the 
manifestation of divine character. It is only in the 
light of a blood-dripping cross that we can begin to 
understand in a measure the statement of Jesus, "For 
God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten 
Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not per- 
ish, but have eternal life/' "God is love," but never 
had man known truly what love meant until he was 
willing to make heaven lonely to redeem a world 
groaning in awful bondage to sin. The picture of the 
dying Lamb in those moments when the Father, un- 
able to witness the agony of his son, turns his face 
away, leaving the heart-breaking scene in darkness, is 
a declaration to all the world and for all time that 
our God is a Father of love. 

2. Then also Paul gloried in the cross because 
it is the measure of Christ's love. Jesus said, "Great- 
er love hath no man than this, that a man lay down 
his life for his friends." (John 15:15.) But he gave 
his life not only for his friends, but for his enemies 
as well; those who cursed him and rejected him. 
I love to see my Saviour as he weeps at the grave of 
Lazarus or as he sits on the hill overlooking Jeru- 
salem and cries out over the sin of his beloved city. 
I love to see him as he restores the leper or raises to 
life the widow's son at Nain. The sight of him bless- 
ing the little children is another evidence of his beauti- 
ful tenderness. But of all scenes of earth, that 
tragedy on the summit of a quaking hill, when the 
Master of this world, the Prince of Heaven, hung in 
shame between two thieves, with a prayer of for- 

— Forty 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

giveness for his enemies upon his dying lips, is the 
sublimest, the most magnificent of all. A Saviour 
of love, a Redeemer of infinite compassion was he. 

Again, Paul gloried in the cross because of its 
power. No more powerful story has ever been told 
than the story of the cross. To touch hearts, to change 
lives, to ever be the instrument of the putting away of 
sin, has been its God-designed purpose. To lift up 
the drunkard, the adulterer, the man of sin wherever 
found, has been the accomplishment of the story of 
Calvary's Cross. The Master truly said, "And I, if I 
be lifted up, will draw all men unto myself." (John 
12 :3.) For wherever that story is told of the Saviour 
lifted up from the earth on a Roman cross, men weep 
in sympathy, turn in disgust from their sins and joy- 
fully follow Him. What a glorious symbol of power 
is the blood-spattered cross ! 

3. Lastly, Paul gloried in the cross because of 
its eternal character. With farsighted, God-given 
vision, he could look down through the tumultuous, 
changing ages and see the triumphant cross an eternal 
verity amid the chaos and ruins of man. Far out in 
the gleam of its flashing rays his eyes pierced through 
the fogs and gloom of ignorance and superstition, sin 
and sorrow, and saw the joy and peace everywhere 
abounding because of the story of the cross. And 
has it not been the one abiding, unchanging fact of 
the ages? Where are the proud Athenians, those 
sneering philosophers, whose mocking smiles greeted 
the words of Paul; those to whom the preaching of 
the cross was but foolishness ? Gone ! Into the eter- 

Forty-one — • 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

nity of God they have passed and their philosophies and 
astrologies, so boasted and dominant as world wis- 
dom, remain but a memory in the minds of a verv 
few. Verily spoke the Apostle more correctly than 
he knew when he said, "God chose the foolish things 
of this world that he might put to shame them that 
are wise, and God chose the weak things of the world 
that he might put to shame things that are strong; 
and the base things of the world and the things that 
are despised did God choose, yea, and the things that 
are not, that he might bring to naught the things that 
are, that no flesh should glory before God." (1 Cor. 
1:27-30.) 

Eternal is the cross ! Where are the glittering 
despotism of Assyria and Babylon which flourished 
amid pomp and splendor beyond the purple hills of 
Palestine? Where are the proud empires of Alex- 
ander or the Ptolemies? Where are the mighty le- 
gions of the Caesars, at the thunders of whose tramp- 
ling a world trembled and was dumb? Where are 
1 be avalanches of Napoleon? Wrecks and ruins, 
heaps of dead stones and countless graves tell the 
age-old story of the end of the pomp and pride of 
man. But above the wrecks of empires and philoso- 
phies, above the shifting chaotic sea of history, shin- 
ing, gleaming, beckoning on, like the star of hope and 
life, stands the glorified, eternal cross of our victorious 
Christ. 

As the weary centuries roll on, as the stars of a 
thousand civilizations rise and wane, until that day 
when over the eastern hills shall gloriously dawn the 

— Forty-two 



GLORYING IN THB GROSS 

morning of eternity, the cross shall lead on, and shine 
on, and plead on the marvelous, undying symbol of 
divine mercy, love and hope. 

Amid the raging seas of life when storm-crested 
seas shall dash my bark of Faith toward the jagged 
rocks of doubt or on the scorching plains of tempta- 
tion, when my grip on right is slackening, or when 
the black waters of that deep ever-flowing river roll 
over my tired head and sweep me toward that glisten- 
ing shore, whence have preceded me innumerable 
millions, blood-washed in the fountain of Calvary's 
Cross, when mine eyes shall for the last time close 
upon loved forms and faces, as my soul shall upward 
wing its triumphant flight to the battlements of God, 
help me then, my Lord, to sing — 

"In the Cross of Christ I glory 

Towering o'er the wrecks of time. 
All the light of sacred story, 

Gathers round its head sublime. 
When the sun of bliss is beaming, 

Light and love upon my way, 
From the Cross new radiance streaming, 

Adds new luster to the day. 

"When the woes of life o'ertake me 
Hopes deceive and fears annoy, 
Never shall the Cross forsake me, 
Lo, it glows with peace and joy." 



Forty-three — 



II 

HELL 



II 

Hell 

Text: "Law is a rule of action. In the fourth or 
vindicatory part of Law consists the main strength 
or force. Where there is no law there can be no 
wrong or violation; where there is no penalty the 
Law is null and void. The principles of right and 
justice are fixed and Law is merely an expression 
and definition of these rules and the naming of the 
penalty for their violation." — Blackstone. 

The age in which we live is one characterized by 
an effort on the part of many to ignore the great 
eschatological teachings of the Word. With some, 
this spirit has become so marked that they deny even 
the very existence of Heaven and Hell. Those who 
by nature look upon the beautiful things of life, those 
whose lives are environed by luxuries or by the pro- 
tecting care of loved ones, will, as a rule, consider the 
subject of hell with a certain degree of abhorrence. 
But if such a place or condition exists, whatever the 
term used in designating it may be, it certainly be- 
hooves us as intelligent men and women to face the 
facts just as they are and give them in our preaching 
and in our thinking that emphasis which is by right 
their due. 

Forty-seven — 



GLORYIXG IX THE CROSS 

Now if hell should exist, let us console ourselves 
here in the beginning of this sermon with the knowl- 
edge that there is no necessity for any man or woman, 
to whom has been granted even the most ordinary 
degree of intellectuality, going to that place. God in 
his unfathomable love and mercy has prepared the 
way of escape. In his son Jesus Christ and because 
he has so loved the world, he has granted full and 
free pardon for all who will receive it and that par- 
don is the only sure hope of man avoiding hell. 
Even* sinner that goes to hell walks over the body 
of Jesus Christ, tramples "the blood of the covenant" 
under his feet and passes unconcerned by the cross 
which, as a flaming beacon, stands squarely in the 
way of even' Perdition-bent individual. If you go 
to hell, my sinner friend, don't blame God or his son. 
Everything that divine love and human suffering 
could do for you has been done, and if you are lost 
you can blame yourself and yourself alone. Not only 
has God fortified hell against you by placing the cross 
of Christ in your way. but he has made the conditions 
upon which you may obtain his pardon so plain and 
so easy that there is left to you no excuse for refus- 
ing to accept them. Thus not only would a man's 
going to hell be against all love and mercy, but it 
would be against all reason, for the way of salva- 
tion is so plain and easy that "the wayfarer, even 
though a simpleton, cannot err therein." 

— Forty-eight 



HELL 

ARGUMENT. 

I. The Existence oe Hell. 

Man has universally been conscious of sin. The 
black monster has coiled his foul length around every 
heart. The three thousand of Pentecost cried out in 
agony of soul, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" 
The Philippian jailer, trembling with fear, prostrated 
himself before Paul and Silas and asked. "What must 
I do to be saved?" Paul, in the throes of the world- 
old battle against the, by human strength alone, un- 
conquerable adversary, exclaims, as its horrible 
stench tills his nostrils. "Oh. who shall deliver me 
from the body of this death?" Sin is here, around 
us, among us, and in us. Some there are who would 
make effeminate the meaning of sin by calling it 
merely a disease, thus doing away with any respon- 
sibility of man to God for his transgressions. With 
such, no longer is the one who purloins your property, 
a thief, but a kleptomaniac, who, by a surgical opera- 
tion, may be healed. Xo more is the one who be- 
comes a besotted beast through the long use of in- 
toxicants, a drunkard and one "who shall not inherit 
the Kingdom of God;" but with them he is now an in- 
valid who may be cured by cutting out his desire for 
drink. But the Word knows not sin in this new 
dress. Sin is sin and "the soul that sinneth it shall 
die." Neither has the universal human consciousness 
accepted this weak view, but it has decreed, after 
centuries of experience, that sin is transgression of 

\-nitic — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

law, and as such is hateful to God, and soul-damning 
to man. 

There is no use for anyone to try to deny the ex- 
istence of sin. It is here in all its myriad polluting 
forms. The marble shaft of the cemetery as it points 
toward the sky is a mute witness to the existence of 
sin. The pages of history, written with the blood of 
a thousand nations, no longer existent in the mem- 
ory of man, testify that sin is here. The roar of the 
cannon, the whiz of the bullet, the horrible crash of 
shell, the shrieks of the wounded and dying, are only 
the expressions of sin in man. Why, if we intro- 
spect our own hearts, we will find the blights and 
scars of the monster there ! The greatest and most 
easily recognizable fact of our life, here and now, is 
the fact of sin. Labor and capital, army and navy, 
tenderloin districts, slums, child labor, penitentiaries, 
electric chairs, saloons, jails and mad houses, what 
are these, and a hundred other kindred terms, but 
the names of problems, conditions and institutions 
made possible only by sin. 

But the consciousness of sin presupposes some- 
thing antecedent to sin, namely, law. "Where there is 
no law there can be no wrong or violation," the state- 
ment of Blackstone in our text might be conversely 
stated and still be equally true, "Where there is no 
wrong or violation there can be no law" for the very 
existence of sin presupposes the existence of law. 
John defines sin as the transgression, or the stepping 
over, of the law ; thus if there is no law to step over, 
there is no sin. For instance, if there be in the uni- 

— Fifty 



HULL 

verse of God no law against murder, lying, stealing or 
committing adultery, it is no sin to murder, lie, steal 
or to commit adultery. The existence of sin always 
means that there is a law to sin against. Therefore 
co-existent with the fact of sin, the fact of law must 
be recognized. 

For the purposes of this discussion, let us divide 
law roughly into two divisions, (1) Civil law, or 
that of the nation, state or municipality, and (2) 
moral law, or that which even though it may be em- 
bodied in the civil law is nevertheless differentiated 
from it by its subject matter. To these divisions for 
purposes of illustration, might be added a third, the 
limits of which are not always easily defined, namely, 
natural law or that by which God governs and con- 
trols the universe. The spheres of these divisions en- 
croach upon one another to such an extent that they 
may appear to be somewhat arbitrary, but for the 
purposes for which they are here employed they will 
be found to be adequate. 

Thus far we have taken two steps in our 
argument, (1) The existence of sin was established 
and (2) coexistent with the existence of sin the fact 
of law was acknowledged. Inseparably connected 
with these two ideas is a third, and one which must 
ever be thought of when either of the others come 
to mind. This next idea or step is, Penalty. Our 
text reminds us "that where there is no penalty the 
law is null and void." For illustration, if there is no 
penalty attached to the law forbidding murder, then 
that law, by virtue of the very fact that no man is 

Fifty-one — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

ever punished for breaking it, becomes "null and void," 
or worthless. If the state has a law against stealing, 
yet when a man steals it says to him, "Go thy way 
in peace; we will do nothing to thee," that law be- 
comes "null and void," or, in short, ceases to exist. 
A law without penalty attached for its violation is in- 
conceivable, for the absence of penalty will kill the 
law, or cause it simply to become non-existent. 

Xow, if we examine some of the so-called "laws 
of nature," we find our statement on the insepa- 
rability of Law and Penalty strikingly confirmed. 
God's natural laws always have penalty attached for 
their violation, they always reward the obedient and 
sternly and unsparingly punish the transgressor. For 
illustration, let us suppose that a man jumps from the 
roof of a ten-story building. He will not fly off into 
the air, as do the birds, but will be dashed to frag- 
ments upon the pavement below, a victim of the 
penalty attached to the law of gravitation. If it were 
not for this penalty the law of gravity would be non- 
existent. It is the very fact that a man is killed when 
he disobeys it that makes it a law to him. It makes 
no difference what a man may think about it, whether 
he may like it or not, the law is absolutely impartial 
in its working. Man may obey or transgress, just as 
he desires. If he obeys, he will be rewarded; if he 
transgresses he will incur the inevitable punishment. 

The law of native element also illustrates the harsh 
but indisputable fact of penalty. Suppose a man, tir- 
ing of the humdrum life of this work-a-day world, 
decides to become an amphibian. But let him try 

— Fifty-two 



HULL 

as he may he cannot become a fish. Water is not 
his native element and he discovers if he attempts a 
life therein, that he will meet a fool's death, for death 
is the penalty attached for the violation of the law of 
native element. 

In our partition of law into its three large divi- 
sions, we mentioned one as, Moral Law, which, even 
though it might be included within the body of the 
Civil Law, was nevertheless differentiated from it by 
the subjects with which it deals and the circumstances 
of its origin. This law began with God. Some 
legislative body may have said, "Thou shalt not kill, 
or thou shalt not steal," but that did riot make it 
wrong to kill or steal. These things were wrong 
long before legislatures or parliaments, courts or sys- 
tems of government were in existence. Man has al- 
ways felt that the doing of these things was sin. Con- 
sciousness of these great moral laws as not emanating 
from himself, but as God-wrought and God-given, 
has ever been one of the most precious heritages of 
the race. Precious indeed, for only in their uncom- 
promising light can man correctly regulate his con- 
duct toward his fellows ; yea, he would not even know 
how to deport himself at all were it not for their 
projection into his consciousness, and that by some 
external power. We might even go farther than the 
affirmation of the existence of this consciousness and 
say that all of our conceptions of the finer things in 
life; of honesty, virtue, marriage, fraternity, are 
founded firmly upon our conception of these very 
moral laws of God. Upon our attitude toward these 

Fifty-three — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

finer things is based our civil law, regulating mar- 
riage, protecting virtue and defining man's duties to- 
ward man. Thus in reality our civil law itself centers 
around, or is based upon, the clearness with which 
we comprehend the great moral law. Long before 
the law had been forged into commands amid the 
mutterings of Sinai, even in that time when the first 
family inhabited the vales of Eden, this consciousness 
of right and wrong was present. When Cain, in that 
hellish fit of jealousy, with foul hands had slain his 
trusting brother, in horror at his deed, as the realiza- 
tion that it was sin in God's sight came over him, he 
brazenly inquires, "Am I my brother's keeper?" To 
deny the presence of these laws in the world would 
be to destroy the foundations of our institutions; it 
would be to divorce man from those splendid qualities 
which so clearly lift him above and beyond the realm 
of the brute. 

In our discussion thus far we have noted that 
disobedience to civil law always brings its reward in 
the form of penalty, but if there be no penalty at- 
tached the law is always null and void. Also in the 
case of God's natural law we found that law apart 
from penalty was an idea, inconceivable. Now if it 
be true in every case that can be found that, "Where 
there is no penalty the law is null and void," then 
these great moral and spiritual laws formulated and 
commanded by the Father, must, if they retain their 
character as laws, have penalties attached for their 
violation, or they are null and void. If they have no 
penalty, then it is no sin to murder; neither is it 

— Fifty-four 



HULL 

morally wrong to lie, steal, or commit adultery. It is 
not a sin to cheat or maltreat one's neighbor, for if 
there be no penalty, then there is no law ; it has be- 
come null and void. If there is no law, then there 
can be no wrong, for, "where there is no law there 
can be no wrong or violation." That penalty attached 
to the moral and spiritual laws of God; that retribu- 
tion which comes as the inevitable reward of sin; that 
pay day, to which every transgressor must come; 
that is hell. 

Therefore, as a conclusion of the point concerning 
the existence of hell, three powerful and utterly in- 
disputable facts must be readily recognized by even 
the most indolent intellect, (1) if there is no hell or 
penalty, then there is no law, for, "law without penalty 
is null and void." (2) If there is no law, then there 
is no sin, for, "Where there is no law, there can be 
no wrong, or violation." (3) If there is no sin, 
then there is no moral or spiritual responsibility; 
there is no need for moral or spiritual reformation, 
and our manifold institutions which exist for the 
avowed end of making men better, our churches, our 
schools, our Y. M. and Y. W. C. A.'s, our asylums, 
our missions, our W. C. T. U/s ; these, and a hundred 
others, kindred in character and purpose, have be- 
come utterly foolish and worse than useless. 

In a sentence, then, to deny the existence of hell 
is to deny both the existence of sin and of law. 

"But," says one, "even though I accept the facts 
as you have produced them, I cannot see how God 
can be just and condemn a man to hell." The trouble 

Fifty-five — 



GLORYING IN THB CROSS 

with many people is that they do not comprehend the 
meaning of the term, justice. An illustration will 
make it clear. Suppose a law in this state against 
horse-stealing, with a maximum penalty of two years 
in state's prison for the first offense. A man thor- 
oughly acquainted with the law, and knowing well 
the penalty, having carefully planned the theft, de- 
liberately steals a dozen horses. He is captured, 
brought to trial and convicted of the crime. Now, 
justice demands that he be imprisoned for two years 
in the penitentiary. He knew the law; he knew of 
the certainty of the punishment if he were captured. 
To suffer the penalty attached to the law prohibiting 
horse-stealing, which he has deliberately violated, 
would be plain, simple justice. Is it in any way un- 
just that he should suffer the two years in prison? 
Who is responsible for the punishment which is in- 
flicted upon him, the law or the law breaker? You 
answer, "The lawbreaker." Then, if he is re- 
sponsible, he is also accountable, and simple justice 
demands that he suffer the penalty. To receive 
justice is simply for a man to get what is rightfully 
coming to him. 

But, now let us suppose that the governor of the 
state comes to the man and says to him, "Because of 
the helpless condition of your good, old Christian 
mother, and because you, as a son, owe her your 
support, I am going to give you a pardon. Take it, 
and you are free." The pardon in this case would not 
represent the justice of the state, but the mercy. Let 
us suppose, however, that the man under penalty, or 

— Fifty -six 



HULL 

justice, calmly folds his arms, and after looking at 
the governor for a moment says, "I don't want your 
pardon, and I won't have it." Such an astonishing 
and uncalled for action as this would simply mean 
that he has spurned the mercy of the state as vested 
in, and offered by, its chief executive. Its mercy 
having been rejected, what could the state do? There 
would positively be nothing that it could do, for it 
could not be merciful to the one who refused to be a 
recipient of its mercy. There would be nothing left 
to the law-breaker save to suffer the penalty of his 
crime. The state did all it could for him in offering 
him mercy when he deserved justice. 

In the Word of God, and by our own consciences, 
we are taught that we are sinners before God ; that 
for our innumerable transgressions we have fallen 
under the penalty of God's laws. There is universal 
recognition of this terrible fact, for all have sinned 
and have fallen short of the glory of God. But, and 
oh, how glorious is the thought, "God so loved the 
world that he gave his only begotten Son, that who- 
soever believeth on him should not perish, but have 
eternal life." The Father found us lost, condemned 
and in ruins. We were without light, without hope. 
Penalty hovered loweringly over us. Had we suf- 
fered that penalty it would have been just, for it 
would have been well deserved. But the Father, 
because he so loved us, granted unto us his mercy, 
his pardon, in his Son Jesus Christ. The sweat and 
blood of Calvary represent the penalty being suffered 
for us that we might receive the pardon. It was not 

Fifty-seven — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

because it was just that Jesus died, but because of 
love, that we might have mercy. Now, suppose a sin- 
ner, one under penalty, calmly rejects the pardon of 
the Father, saying, "I will have nothing to do with 
the Christ. ,, He thereby spurns the mercy of God. 
Then how can the Father be merciful to the one 
who will not accept his mercy? If a man will not 
take the pardon there is nothing left but for him to 
suffer the justice. God cannot be merciful, but can 
only be just to the one who refuses his mercy. The 
writer of the Hebrew letter recognizes this when he 
says, "A man that hath set at naught Moses' law dieth 
without compassion (mercy) on the word of two or 
three witnesses, of how much sorer punishment, think 
ye, shall he be judged worthy who hath trodden un- 
der foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood 
of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an un- 
holy thing, and hath done despite to the Spirit of 
Grace." (Heb. 10:28-29.) The old law represented 
strict justice; the new law justice tempered with 
mercy. Heaven has done all for man that could be 
done, even to the offering of a pardon, when man in 
his guilty state was deserving of nothing but justice. 
To reject that pardon is nothing more or less than 
spiritual suicide. 

II. The Proof that Hell Is Future. 

We are not only interested in the question as to 
whether or not hell exists, but after demonstrating 
this to our satisfaction we want to know when it will 

— Fifty-eight 



HULL 

be, or the time of its existence. Is hell to be here 
or hereafter? is the question. Now, if we can dis- 
pose of all theories, which in any way claim that hell 
is here and now, we shall have established our point 
that it is future by eliminating all other possibilities. 
Thus a careful survey and searching analysis of three 
theories are indispensable before any direct argu- 
ments can be adduced for the futurity of hell. 

1. The first theory maintains that the pangs of 
a guilty conscience constitute all the hell there is. 
Says one, "When I do right my conscience is clear, 
and in that I possess such a conscience I am re- 
warded for my goodness. When I do wrong my 
conscience hurts me, and I am punished with re- 
morse and sorrow because of my wrong-doing. Thus 
my conscience becomes a hell to me when I sin." 

It is a well-known fact to all that the oftener one 
does a thing the easier it becomes to do that thing. 
The first efforts are always accompanied with more 
or less difficulty. The first movements of the pupil 
trying to learn to play the piano are usually awk- 
ward and labored. Consciousness interposes itself 
every time a finger touches a key and says, "Do this" 
or "Do that." As time goes on, however, through 
constant and faithful practice, useless movements 
are inhibited, consciousness ceases to direct as to de- 
tails, and the keys seem almost to play themselves. 
Analagous to this familiar illustration is the play o: 
conscience in the moral life of the individual. When 
a sin is first committed difficulty invariably attends. 
Conscience intrudes and whispers, "Don't do this or 

Fifty-nine — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

that," but as the sin is frequently and regularly com- 
mitted these whisperings grow fainter and fainter, 
until conscience is inhibited and the sin, attended at 
first with such difficulty of soul, finally becomes 
habitual. To state it briefly, the more a man sins the 
less conscience he has about sin. This being true, 
then the worse a man is the less hell he gets, if one 
accepts the theory that conscience is all the hell there 
is. 

Now there are some people whose consciences, 
through constant training, have become so acute that 
even the most trivial sin will cause them to experi- 
ence the most severe anguish of soul. To the first 
man the blackest sin in the whole category will not 
bring one pang because his conscience has become 
seared as with a hot iron; while in the case of the 
second the slightest wrong-doing will cause multifold 
miseries. Therefore, according to the conscience- 
hell theory, the more spiritual, moral and righteous 
a man becomes, the more hell he gets, and the more 
debased and depraved he becomes the- less hell he 
gets. 

It should also be noted that if conscience is a 
man's hell it must also be his heaven, for heaven and 
hell both stand on the same authority in the Bible and 
in the light of reason. As a rule, however, those 
who believe in this theory do not make it apply to 
heaven. The theory is thus one-sided. 

2. A second theory claims that we get our 
hell here upon this earth. Every time we sin we will 
be punished for it here. As far as the Scriptures are 

— Sixty 



HULL 

concerned, if this idea be correct, then we will get 
our heaven here also. But one thing is as a rule 
noticeable, and that is the fact that those who believe 
that all the hell the sinner gets he gets here, usually 
firmly believe that heaven is hereafter. As we have 
before remarked, heaven and hell stand upon the 
same authority, both in the Scriptures and in the light 
of reason; so if we get one here we will get the other 
also. 

As we study the multiform conditions of life we 
are constantly struck by the fact that absolute justice 
here is unknown ; also that in this life it is practically 
impossible. The innocent are so many times pun- 
ished while the guilty go free; the wicked and dis- 
solute enjoy the good things of life while the right- 
eous are persecuted and receive the hard end of all 
things. Nero on the throne, the Christian a prey to 
the half-starved beasts of the arena ; labor crushed by 
capital, courts brided by tainted money — these are 
but grains of sand on the seashore of illustrations of 
the absence of absolute justice. But if there be a 
counterfeit justice there must somewhere be the true 
justice, for there cannot be the shadow without there 
be that from which the shadow takes its form; there 
cannot be the counterfeit without the genuine, after 
the pattern of which it is counterfeited. If there be 
no absolute justice here, then it must be after here 
or hereafter. Thus hell must be hereafter also, for 
only where absolute justice is dispensed can there be 
just rewards and punishments. 

Another thing noticeable about our existence is 

Sixty-one — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

that our lives interact upon one another. Paul ex- 
pressed the idea when he said that no man lives or 
dies unto himself. If a man dies in our vicinity we 
are influenced to some extent by the death, the in- 
tensity of the influence depending, of course, upon 
the nearness or remoteness of the influencing action. 
If it happens a thousand miles from us we read the 
account in the newspaper and an involuntary shud- 
der passes over us; if it happens in the home across 
the street our interest is more intense, but if it takes 
place in our own home it breaks our hearts. The 
actions of the guilty punish the innocent, yea, the 
very existence of the sinner and his sin must of 
necessity be a punishment to the righteous. Murders, 
thefts, etc., occur, yet it is the man innocent of crime 
who by the sweat of his face must build the peni- 
tentiaries, erect the gallows, establish and maintain 
the madhouse and the home for the feeble-minded, or 
the habitation for the aged and infirm. Sin punishes 
the innocent as well as the guilty. 

An illustration : a good Christian mother possesses 
a son who, in his young manhood, because of morally 
unhealthy associates, becomes corrupt in his per- 
sonal life ; his habits become bad and he seems to care 
not at all for things of a religious nature. The 
mother, who has slaved that he might have a chance 
in the world, and who now, in her old age is deserv- 
ing of all the heaven that life has in store, is punished 
by every sinful action of her ungrateful son. Shame 
and sorrow are heaped upon her by the one who 
should be her support and stay. Whether his ac- 

— Sixty-two 



HULL 

tions be intended to hurt or not, the punishment 
which they inflict is none the less terrible to bear. 
Ah, if the story of lives could be written, how many 
times over would this illustration be repeated? Ac- 
cording, then, to the idea that we get our hell here on 
earth, the good Christian mother who, because of her 
pure life, deserves heaven, is the recipient of hell 
because of the thoughtless follies of her wicked son. 

The theory is manifestly an impossible one be- 
cause our lives are too closely interwoven for one 
to be suffering the horrors of hell while his brother, 
with whom he dwells, is enjoying the delights of 
heaven, without there being an interaction of one 
life upon the other. Or, in a word, heaven, to be 
heaven, and hell, to be hell, must be separated, and 
separated so far that there can be no influence of 
one upon the other. Or, to state it again, heaven to 
be reward, and hell, to be justice, must not be in the 
same place; for the punishment of the guilty would 
likewise become a punishment to the innocent. Even 
the very existence of the guilty in the same place 
with the righteous would be a punishment to the 
latter. 

Concluding, then, if hell is not the pangs of a 
guilty conscience ; if it cannot, in order to retain its 
very character as hell, be here, then it must be after 
here, or hereafter, sometime in the future. 

But we can determine the time of its existence 
even more accurately than to say that it is in the 
future. Hell cannot be until this life is over and 
time shall be no more, and until there shall be a great 

Sixty-three — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

and final judgment. It would be impossible to judge 
a man fairly at his death. True, the immediate acts 
of his life might be judged; but what about his in- 
fluence ? A man does not die at death. His body may 
lie mouldering in the tomb, but his influence goes 
marching on. Is Ingersoll dead? No, his influence 
still blights and ruins. Does Jonathan Edwards still 
live? Yes, his splendid influence goes triumphantly 
on blessing and uplifting. The after-death influence 
of these men accomplishes more for good or ill than 
the immediate result of their few years upon the 
earth. Truly an impossible task is it to adequately 
judge the lives of these men and of all others until 
influence itself shall cease, and that can only be when 
time shall have been ended by the Father's hand. 
Thus the final judgment must be at the end of time. 
Hell cannot, in the nature of things, be awarded 
to those meriting it until after judgment, and if 
judgment be after time has ceased, then hell must also 
be after time has become no more. Therefore hell 
is in the future, after all time and after the last 
great judgment. 

III. The Character of Hell. 

The next question which naturally arises in the 
progress of the discussion is one as to the nature or 
character of hell. What kind of a place is it going 
to be? Not many decades ago the common idea of 
the character of hell was the one very clearly ex- 
pressed in the old phrase much used by spellbinding 

— Sixty-four 



HELL 

evangelists, as in the fervor of religious excitement 
they would describe the unrepentant as, "hair-hung 
and breeze-shaken over the flaming pit." Visions of 
an immense sea of fire and brimstone from which day 
and night ascended the smoke of the eternally tor- 
mented were painted in words of terrible descriptive 
power, while terrified audiences sat trembling, with 
open eyes and mouths. 

But, if one will think for a moment, this concep- 
tion taxes the credulity of even the most credulous. 
Fire and brimstone can have terror but for the ma- 
terial body alone. Paul tells us that "flesh and blood 
cannot inherit the Kingdom of God." (1 Cor. 15:50), 
but that the body will be a new body and spiritual. 
Fire and brimstone can have no terrors for the 
spiritual form of man when he enters the beyond. 

But how can the numerous scriptural descriptions 
of hell be explained, for assuredly they abound in 
references to fire and brimstone? True, but one law 
which can invariably be found to explain these bibli- 
cal descriptions is, that wherever Jesus, his apostles, 
or any of the inspired writers describe hell, the terms 
employed are always figurative. This law may be 
illustrated by an explanation of the sense in which 
the words Gehenna (Greek) or Hinnom (Hebrew) 
was used. 

The valley of Hinnom, or Gehenna, bounds Jeru- 
salem on the south below Mount Zion, and is the 
place which is so often mentioned as the setting of 
the awful idolatrous rites practiced by the apostate 
kings before the great idol Moloch. When King 

Sixty-five — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

Josiah at last succeeded in overthrowing this idolatry, 
he denied the valley by casting into it the bones of 
the dead, the greatest of all pollutions among the 
Jews. From this time on all the refuse of Jerusalem 
was cast into it and the combustible parts of it de- 
stroyed by fire which was kept forever burning. In 
the time of Christ the festering bodies of criminals, 
dispatched according to the barbarous fashions of 
execution then prevalent, were cast into this terrible 
valley, and the smoke of the ever-burning fires carried 
their horrid stench mingled with that arising from 
the rotting bodies of dead swine, which were to the 
Jew the most detested of all animals, to all the val- 
ley's immediate environs. It is not to be wondered 
at, then, that to the Jews this place was the most 
horrible upon the earth. The very mention of the 
name Gehenna would provoke within him the most 
profound sensations of horror and disgust. Thus it 
is that Jesus, in the attempt to make clear to those 
unlettered fishermen, who had so often demonstrated 
their inability to receive a spiritual lesson, the ab- 
horrent character of Hell, uses the familiar and de- 
tested term Gehenna as descriptive of that place 
"which eternal justice hath prepared for those rebel- 
lious." Hell was not to be the valley of Gehenna, but 
in that it was to be a place of horror and gloom — it 
was to be like Gehenna. Hence the terms employed 
are figurative, simply attempts to portray to mortal 
man the terrors of spiritual punishment. 

But if hell is not a burning pit, a lake of fire and 

— Sixty-six 



HULL 

brimstone; what kind of a place is it anyway? Is it 
a beautiful place or the abode of perpetual gloom? 

When one thinks of heaven, whether that one be- 
lieves in hell or not, he tries to imagine a place beau- 
tiful beyond the power of human genius, inexperi- 
enced in its celestial delights, to paint in feeble words. 
The word heaven is to man the symbol of the highest 
conception which has ever been his of truth, beauty 
and eternal soul-delight. By the law of opposites 
which tells us "that if there exists the good there must 
also be the bad; if there be white there must be its 
opposite black," man has always been made to be- 
lieve that hell, the exact opposite in character of 
heaven and as far removed as "from the center thrice 
to utmost pole," must then be by nature the most 
doleful and horrible place in the Universe of God. 
And such we are convinced, both by reason and 
Scripture, it must be. 

Because hell does not consist of a lake of fire and 
brimstone let no one deceive himself into considering 
it a place of pleasure or a sort of summer resort. 
The terrors of hell are not at all minimized by the de- 
struction of the ancient and utterly false conception 
by which, on pain of excruciating physical suffering, 
men were frightened into repentance, but rather do 
they become a thousand times more terrible when 
the true character of hell is revealed. 

In proving the futurity of hell the fact was estab- 
lished that hell, to be hell, and reward to be reward, 
the two conditions must be separated so far that 
there could be no influence of one upon the other, 

Sixty-seven — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

for a reciprocal influence would destroy the char- 
acter of both. Now all acknowledge it to be scrip- 
tural teaching that heaven is the abiding place of 
God; that all the beauties and glories of that won- 
derful home are emanations from his loving presence. 
If, then, heaven and hell are so far separated that 
inter-influence is impossible, then hell will be in char- 
acter whatever it must mean to be separated from 
God. A very slight idea of what this would be is 
given to us as we behold the lives of those about us 
here, and now who are separated from God. The 
drunkard, with his bleared eyes, his seamed and fur- 
rowed face, his look of hopeless despair, as he realizes 
how utter is his servitude to rum; is he not an aw- 
ful picture of the barrenness and bleakness of a life 
separated from God? Or look into the cold, hard 
eyes of the prostitute ; see the artificial red on lip 
and cheek ; behold the complete absence of that which 
lends to womanhood its most gracious charm, a 
gentle, womanly reserve, and then exclaim in pity- 
ing words, "how terrible is the life of that soul that 
knows not God !" 

And if separation be terrible here, what must it be 
hereafter, when to those terrors incident to the life of 
sin and without God must be added the consciousness 
that through an eternity no hope of change can come. 
Lost opportunities, golden moments wasted in sin, oh, 
how clearly will they be remembered then, when no 
more opportunities or golden moments come ! To be 
separated for an interminable eternity from the pres- 
ence of God, from hope, from light, into outer dark- 

— Sixty-eight 



HULL 

ness, "where there shall be weeping and wailing and 
gnashing of teeth." "Such place eternal justice hath 
prepared for those rebellious." 

And think you that this hell will not be a place 
of horror? All happiness and every true delight of 
this present world is made possible by the existence 
of God or his people. The home with all its joys, 
political freedom, fraternity; our hospitals, our 
schools — are 1 not all these, and more, resultants of our 
knowledge of the Father? To be separated from him 
and from his people, truly this would be a hell terrible 
enough for even the most hardened unregenerate ! 

Another conclusion concerning the awful char- 
acter of hell, which, from the nature of the argument 
forces itself upon us, is that one which is derived 
from the character of hell's occupants. If hell is to 
be the abode of liars, thieves, murderers, cut-throats, 
adulterers, whoremongers, gossipers, slanderers, the 
devil and his angels it will indeed be a terrible place. 
The wrangling, the back-biting, the wailings of despair, 
the groanings and gnashings of teeth, and that through 
an endless eternity, such a hell as this should be 
enough to make the sinner's blood run cold. In such 
a hell all the wicked of all the ages will be gathered to- 
gether and there will be no forgiveness nor any hope 
of reformation; but brooding over all there will be an 
eternal darkness caused by the absence of God. Such 
will be the terrible penalty reserved for those who re- 
fuse God's mercy. 

Sixty-nine — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 
IV. The Duration of Heu,. 

During our argument on future punishment we 
have been tacitly assuming that hell was to be of 
eternal duration. Is this assumption a reasonable one? 
How long will hell last? is therefore the next question 
which logically confronts us. 

There are those who believe that hell will be 
a place where some soul, less guilty than others, will be 
boiled, fried or tormented in half a dozen fiendish ways 
for a few thousand years ; then when he has been 
purged of all his meanness, he will be permitted to 
enter the realms of glory. Hell is not a reform 
school; hell is penalty attached to law. Hell is not a 
place to get ready for heaven. In this life man is to 
prepare for the life beyond. The only purgatory that 
the Bible teaches is Christ. If we reject him as God's 
pardon there is no other opportunity for change. 
Punishment will last just as long as man is guilty, un- 
der law. If there is no pardon after death, and if 
there is, man, as yet, has never received the revela- 
tion of it, and if man, at death, is guilty under law, 
then punishment must last as long as guilt lasts. If 
there is no pardon after death, then guilt would be 
eternal. If guilt is eternal, then punishment or penalty 
must be eternal, everlasting, never-ending. Punish- 
ment never makes a man any better when in that pun- 
ishment he is separated from all means of reformation. 
In our last division we found that hell was banish- 
ment from the presence of God into outer darkness, 

— Seventy 



HELL 

away from light, from joy, from all contact with 
righteousness. 

"A dungeon horrible on all sides round, 
As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames no 

light; but rather darkness visible 
Served only to discover sights of woe, 
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades where peace and rest 

can never dwell, hope never comes." 

If this is hell, then what chance has man for 
reformation? He is far removed from all opportu- 
nity of change. No missionary can come to him with 
the life-giving message. No prayers of a God-fear- 
ing mother can allure him upward. His day of op- 
portunity is over. The company in which he finds 
himself is not the kind which will work for his bet- 
terment. In the life which we live today, even that 
one who desires fervently to live the life of purity will 
find it impossible to do so if he be continually envi- 
roned by sin. In hell, where there is no environment 
save that which is low and vile, how can one even 
hope for change for the better? Hell in duration is 
eternal, a place of doom and despair. 

CONCLUSION. 

Sad and horrible though the fact of hell may be — 
its existence, its futurity, its terrible and eternal char- 
acter — yet how human hearts should thrill with joy 
because a loving Father has mercifully prepared a way 
of escape. When man falls, and by his fall condemns 
himself to eternal penalty, the Father, because he so 

Seventy-one — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

loved the world, was willing to bankrupt heaven itself 
that the pardon might be given. Reject not, then, this 
day, that pardon so mercifully offered to us who are 
worthy only of justice. Mercy is yours, freedom, 
light and hope. Oh, accept it while you may ! 



— Seventy-two 



Ill 

THE DIVINE NAME 



Ill 

The Divine Name 



Texts: But, if any man suffer as a Christian, let 
him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this 
name." (1 Pet. 4:16.) 

"Do not they blaspheme the honorable name by 
which ye are called." (James 2:7.) 

In this sermon on the divine name there is no in- 
tention on the part of the author to make an attack 
on any individual or communion ; and, although in this 
discussion the names of some religious bodies may 
be used to a certain extent, the spirit in which they 
are employed is meant to be at all times courteous 
and charitable. One must, however, be lucid in every 
statement in order that the truth may be clearly set 
forth before all. 

Now, as the Church of Christ is a divine institu- 
tion, founded by the Son of God and upon the granite 
truth of the deity of that Son, we would expect to 
find that the name by which it is to be differentiated 
from all other institutions would be a divine name. 
We would also expect that the individual members who 
constitute the church would be called by a name, 
divine, different and infinitely transcending all earthly 
names in that it would be bestowed by the Father 
himself. In our text James refers to "that worthy name 

Seventy -jive — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

by which ye are called," and it is our purpose here to 
find out just what that name was, for if the same 
conditions which were binding upon the people to 
whom James writes are binding today upon us, then 
we also should be called by the same name which was 
worn by them. 

ARGUMENT. 

I. Some Objections to Human Names, as Now 
Worn by Followers of Christ. 

The almost innumerable human names which are 
worn by those who profess to be God's people are 
open to many serious objections, some of which we 
want to consider briefly before we proceed to the dis- 
cussion of "that worthy name." 

1. In the first place, human names are wrong and 
directly antagonistic to the very spirit of the teach- 
ing of Christ, because they are divisive in character. 
Christ prayed that his people might remain one 
people. (John 17.) Paul teaches that if we are 
divided we are "carnal and walk as men." (1 Cor. 
1 :10-24.) Anything which erects itself as "a wall of 
partition," no matter how revered or deeply imbedded 
in the memory of a people it may be, is diametrically 
opposed to the desire of the Master and his apostles, 
that God's people should ever be one. And human 
names do divide. The Methodist refuses to be called 
a Baptist, or the Presbyterian a Congregationalist. 
Each wears his own denominational name and clings 
to it with a tenacity born of a prejudice built up by 

Seventy-six 



THE DIVINE NAME 

years of denominational wrangling. Let all party- 
names be forgotten, and one of the greatest barriers to 
the consummation of a glorious union of God's chil- 
dren will be broken down. 

2. Again, human names are objectionable because 
they honor the wrong person, ordinance, or institu- 
tion. To call God's people Campbellites means that 
the honor for founding a church is conferred on Mr. 
Campbell, even though he firmly denied that he pos- 
sessed any authority to organize a church or that he 
had ever even thought of founding one. Such names 
as Wesleyan and Lutheran are other illustrations of 
the attempt to crown with honor men to whose hum- 
ble Christian piety such honor was little less than re- 
pugnant, because they so clearly recognized that they 
were not in any way worthy of it, and because they 
knew well to whom that honor belonged. Why honor 
them thus? Were they founders of the Church of 
God? Who said, "Upon this rock I will build my 
church?" (Matt. 16:18.) Who was it who said, "I 
go to prepare a place for you, that where I am, there 
ye may be also," or "Father, forgive them ; they know 
not what they do." Did Luther, Wesley or Campbell 
die for our sins? Is it through them that we are 
promised a home eternal? If Christ is the founder, 
the head, the Saviour, should we not honor him by 
wearing his name ? Let us give honor to whom honor 
is due. When we wear, as a church name, the name 
of one of the great religious leaders we are honoring 
the wrong person as the chief one in the church. 

If we exalt an ordinance, such as the ordinance 

Seventy-seven — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

of Christian baptism, into the prominent position of 
a church name, we are again guilty of wrongfully be- 
stowing honor. It is not baptism nor our belief in 
baptism which we should exalt, neither our belief 
in the spiritual oversight of the elders, nor of con- 
gregational government, but the founder, the builder, 
the head of the church, our Lord Jesus Christ. 

3. A third objection to the interminable maze 
of human names is that it acts as a stumbling block 
to the sinner. Each name represents a distinct people, 
or church, and as the sinful man, desirous of being as 
near right as possible, wanders from place to place, 
his hope of finding the right path becomes deep despair 
and he cries aloud, "Oh, what shall I do? Where 
shall I go? What name shall I wear?" Many a sin- 
sick one has been lost simply because he could not 
find the path of God in the maze of humanisms con- 
structed through centuries by man. 

II. What Name Did Christ's Disciples Wear 

After the Establishment of the Church 

on the Day of Pentecost? 

1. The first place in which we find the divine 
name used is in the cosmopolitan city of Antioch. 
In Acts 11:26, Luke says that "the disciples were 
called Christians first at Antioch." But at once the 
question is asked, "Who gave them the name? Is it 
not a fact that the name was given to them in de- 
rision or as a title of reproach? Was it not a term 
employed by the pagan enemies of Christianity to ex- 

— Seventy-eight 



THE DIVINE NAME 

press their contempt of the followers of Christ ?" 
Many of our modern denominations have received 
their names in precisely this manner. In derision or 
as a nickname the term Methodist was used first by 
Oxford students concerning the Holy Club of the 
University, formed for purposes of prayer and re- 
ligious meditation by John and Charles Wesley. From 
this Methodical club the Methodist societies were 
named, and afterwards the great Methodist Episcopal 
Church. Now, did not the disciples receive their name 
Christian in much the same manner as a nickname, 
or title of ridicule? 

About the most accurate and perhaps the only cor- 
rect method of determining the answer to this very 
widely misunderstood question is to find out the ex- 
act meaning of the original Greek verb translated in 
our English versions "were called." The verb is 
XprjfMiTLiu), from the noun xP Y lf mTiO 't X0 '' s > which means 
"an oracle." The verb, therefore, means "to speak 
as an oracle, to be divinely warned, to be called or 
named from a divine source." Always when the word 
is used it is in the sense of a divine call, warning or 
command. Whenever the words "to be warned" or "to 
be called" are used in a human sense alone the Greek 
verbs employed are either KaAew (Matt. 10:13, GaL 
5:8, Luke 1:31, Matt. 10:25) or vTroseiKw/xt (Matt. 
3 :7, Luke 3 :7, Luke 6 :47, Luke 12 :5, Acts 9 :16, Acts 
20:35.) Never in the New Testament are these verbs 
used in the sense of a warning or a command or a 
calling in the form of the bestowal of a name except 
as emanating from human sources. When the divine 

Seventy-nine — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

is mentioned as the source of such warnings or com- 
mands the verb XPV UXXT ^ (1) is always used. 

Nine times in the New Testament the verb 
Xprjfxarilo} is translated with this divine sense clearly 
indicated. And if Acts 1 1 :26 were correctly trans- 
lated it would be given there also. For purposes of 
comparison the places where xPVt MLT ^ Ui is used are 
here listed. The English version referred to is the 
American Standard Revised. 

Matt. 2:12: — "And being warned of God in a 

dream (xP r lf xaTLa '0* VT€ $) that they should not return to 
Herod, they departed into their own country another 
way/' 

Matt. 2 :22 : — "But when he heard that Archelaus 
was reigning over Judea in the room of his father 
Herod, he was afraid to go thither; and being warned 

of God in a dream (xP 7 lf xaT ^ €L ^) he withdrew into the 
parts of Galilee." 

Luke 2 :26 : — "And it had been revealed to him by 
the Holy Spirit (Kex/^^aTwr/AcW) that he should not 
see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ." 

Acts 10 :22 : — "And they said, Cornelius, a cen- 
turion, a righteous man, and one that feareth God, and 
well reported of by all the nation of the Jews, was 
warned of God by a holy angel (ixprju-aTLo-Oe) to send 
for thee into his house, and to hear words from thee." 

Romans 7 :3 : — "So then if, while the husband 
liveth, she be joined to another man, she shall be 
called (xp^/acitiW) an adulteress : but if the hus- 
band die, she is freed from the law, so that she is no 
adulteress, though she be joined to another man." 

— Eighty 



THE DIVINE NAME 

The sense here in which the woman should be called 
an adulteress is clearly the divine sense, in that the 
law concerning this case first originates with God. 

Romans 11 :4 : — "But what sayeth the answer of 
God unto him? (X^/xaTwr/Aos) I have left for myself 
seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee 
to Baal." In this passage X/o^/xaTioyxo? is used in al- 
most identically the same sense as if it were an oracle 
speaking. 

Heb. 8 :4-5 : — "Now if he were on earth he would 
not be a priest at all, seeing there are those who of- 
fer the gifts according to the law, who serve that 
which is a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, 
even as Moses is warned of God {KtKp-qfmria-ai) when 
he is about to make the tabernacle; for, see, saith he, 
that thou make all things according to the pattern that 
was showed thee in the mount." 

Heb. 11:7: — "By faith Noah, being warned of 
God (XprjfULTio-deis) concerning things not seen as yet, 
moved with godly fear, prepared an ark to the sav- 
ing of his house; through which he condemned the 
world and became heir of the righteousness which is 
according to faith." 

Heb. 12 :25 : — "See that ye refuse not him that 
speaketh. For if they escaped not when they re- 
fused him that warned them on earth, much more 
shall not we escape who turned away from him that 

warneth from heaven ( xpvf mT ^ 0VTa ) - 

Acts 1 1 :26 : — "And it came to pass, that even for 
a whole year they were gathered together with the 
church, and taught much people ; and that the dis- 

Eighty-one — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

ciples were called (xPVf JL0LT ^ (TaL ) Christians first in An- 
tioch." 

In all of these passages the indisputable meaning 
of the word Xprjfw.T^(o is, "divinely called, or called 
of God." In Acts 11 :26, however, the meaning is not 
made as clear in our English versions as it might be. 
If the sentence had been translated just exactly as it 
reads, there would have been no doubt about the mat- 
ter at all. The part of the verse " Xpry/xarto-ai re ^wto)? 

iv 'Avrto^ciarovs fjLadrjras xpLO-Tuxvovs" would then have 

been, "and the disciples were divinely called Chris- 
tians first at Antioch." Such a rendering as this 
would then have corresponded with the translations 
given the word xP r lf mT ^ 0) m the other passages in 
which it is used. If this correct rendering had been 
given, all the questions and disputes as to whether 
or not the name was given in derision would obviously 
have been impossible. 

Meyer's commentary on Acts, which as an author- 
ity in this realm has but few peers, concerning Acts 
11:26 makes this statement: "There is nothing to 
support the view that the term (Christian) was first 
used as a title of ridicule." (p. 223.) 

Doctor John Straub, Dean of the College of 
Literature, Science and Arts, and for thirty-six years 
head of the department of Greek at the University of 
Oregon, and easily one of the most eminent author- 
ities on Greek in the United States, a Presbyterian in 
belief, in referring to this verse says, "There is no 
good reason why any one should think that the dis- 
ciples were called Christians in derision. The very 

— Eighty-two 



THE DIVINE NAME 

meaning of the noun XpTy/xaTtV/Aos from which the 
verb XpTy/xaTt^w is derived precludes any such idea." 

There is therefore not one iota of doubt from the 
original meaning of the word and from the position 
occupied by the scholarship of the world that the 
disciples were "divinely called" Christians or "called 
of God" first at Antioch. 

And why first at Antioch? Why should the Lord 
choose this place as the one where, for the first time, 
the gift of the new name should be bestowed upon his 
people? The religion of the Christ was to be a uni- 
versal religion, world-wide, cosmopolitan, a gospel 
preached "to every creature." All social and racial 
barriers were to be leveled and there was to be neither 
Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free, neither male 
nor female, but all were to be one in Christ Jesus. 
(Gal. 3:28.) 

The Jerusalem church was not a cosmopolitan 
church because its membership was made up entirely 
of Jews. It was not, therefore, representative of the 
world-wide character of the new religion. Its mem- 
bers clung fiercely to many of the Jewish customs, not 
realizing that the gospel message was to be pro- 
claimed to the whole world. The new name could not, 
therefore, be properly given to them until they be- 
came world-wide in their conception of the divine 
message. No church could be truly Christian until 
all party spirit had been destroyed and until the eyes 
of its membership had been anointed with the glori- 
ous missionary visions. The Antiochian church was 
the first one under the new dispensation to number 

Mighty-three — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

among its constituency both Jews and Gentiles. It 
could properly have been said of them that they were 
neither Jew nor Greek, but that they were all one in 
Christ Jesus. Racial distinctions were forgotten ; 
social walls, if not entirely destroyed, were far less 
frequently emphasized. This church was also the 
first one to realize the world-wide missionary obliga- 
tion, and from its doors were sent forth Barnabas and 
Saul, the first missionary ambassadors of the King 
from the first missionary church to take to the world, 
regardless of race or previous religious affiliations, the 
joyous evangel of the cross. Antioch was the first 
place where the meaning of Christ's statement, "Ye 
shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all 
Judea and Samaria and unto the uttermost part of 
the earth," first became clearly apparent to his dis- 
ciples. How befitting, then, that at Antioch, a city 
itself the meeting place for all nations, the birthplace 
of the first church, truly representative of the new re- 
ligion in that in its worship for the first time Jew and 
Gentile disciples mingled on the common plane of 
brotherhood in Christ, the place from which were sent 
forth the first missionaries to all men, that here the 
wonderful new name should first be divinely given. 

But suppose, for argument's sake, that it should 
be granted that the name Christian was given to 
Christ's disciples by pagan or heathen peoples as a 
term of reproach or ridicule, could a name more ex- 
pressive of the spirit of the new religion or of the 
redeemed's relation to the Redeemer be given, even 
by the Father himself? The whole system is Christ- 

— Eighty-four 



THE DIVINE NAME 

filled. It is founded upon Christ; it is headed by- 
Christ. Men are to believe in and be obedient to 
Christ in order to be saved from sin. Christ is 
Alpha and Omega, beginning and end; he is Lord of 
all; Redeemer, Saviour, Sacrifice and Judge. The 
whole system is Christ. How glorious, then, that the 
saved, the redeemed, the obedient man should be 
named a Christ-i-an one ! How wonderfully expres- 
sive is the term "Christ-i-an" or "Christ One," of that 
marvelously beautiful relation existing between the 
saved and the Saviour ! Paul states this relationship 
when he says, "For as many of you as were baptized 
into Christ did put on Christ." (Gal. 3:27.) "Buried 
with him through baptism," we become a part of the 
world-wide soul-saving system which is Christ. We 
become "one of Christ" or a "Christ-One." 

Thus, even were it possible to establish the posi- 
tion that the disciples were called Christians first in 
derision, yet we would be forced to conclude that in 
their choice of a derisive term those pagan or heathen 
peoples by whom it was first used in Antioch were 
guided by the Father himself. 

2. The second use of the term Christian recorded 
in the New Testament is in Acts 26 :28. King Agrip- 
pa had been listening with intense interest and eyes 
wide with wonder to that masterpiece of pleas made 
by Paul in defense of his Lord and in the attempt to 
persuade the king to follow also the teachings of the 
Nazarene. All of Paul's great exhortations were with 
the view to persuasion, and on this occasion, which 
he recognized as one of life's opportunities, every 

Eighty-five — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

natural endowment, emphasized by his pure spirit- 
filled soul, glowed in his every word and gesture as 
he threw his best self into the effort to bring the love 
of Christ into the heart of the dissolute Agrippa. 
And the King, touched, wavering on the very verge 
of decision, tensely whispers, "Paul, with but little 
persuasion thou wouldst fain make me a Christian." 
(Acts 26:28.) Then Paul, completely disclosing the 
purpose of his masterful plea, as he holds up his 
hands bound with the great prisoner's chain, speaks 
the generous answer of a noble soul, "I would to God 
that whether with little or with much, not thou only, 
but also all that hear me this day, were such as I am 
except these bonds." (Acts 26:29.) 

3. The third and last time that the name Chris- 
tian is used in the New Testament is found in Peter's 
first epistle, 4:16, "Yet if any man suffer as a 
Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glori- 
fy God ( ev raj ovo/oum rovTio) in this name." Peter 
was here writing by the inspiration of the Spirit. If 
he was inspired by the Spirit then he must be giving 
the message of the Spirit. If this is the message of 
the Spirit, then the words, "Let him glorify God in 
this name" must of a truth be the very words of the 
Spirit. If, then, even were it true that the disciples 
were called Christians in derision, the Holy Spirit 
sanctions the term, and not only sanctions it, but tells 
us to "glorify God in this name." 

But some one objects, saying, "I am a Christian 
and I do wear the name, but I am a Baptist, Method- 
ist or Presbyterian Christian. If I am a Christian, 

— Eighty -six 



THE DIVINE NAME 

even though I am wearing another name, am I not 
glorifying God?" Acknowledging, my brother, that 
your intention is good, still to the thinking man even 
though you be a Christian, the very fact that before 
the world you wear, for instance, the name Methodist, 
shows that you are glorifying a nickname rather than 
God through the name which is itself a glorification 
of his Son. Or if before men you wear the name 
Baptist you are glorifying the ordinance of baptism 
rather than the one who commanded baptism. If you 
wear the name Congregationalist you glorify or ex- 
alt a form of church polity rather than the One who 
was the author of that form. The one who wears the 
name Presbyterian is glorifying the form of church 
government by the Presbytery or elders rather than 
the Father through the divinely appointed name. We 
are commanded to glorify, to exalt and to magnify 
the Father in the name Christian. We are to be 
known before the world as Christians, and in any and 
every way that we can advance the Kingdom of God 
we are to do so, wearing this wonderful name. Oh, 
glorious name ! Oh, wonderful name ; so proudly 
worn by Paul and Barnabas, Peter and John, given 
by the Father as a name of honor, sanctioned by the 
Holy Spirit as a name of glory and power! 

But now what shall we do with the name "dis- 
ciple." Are we not disciples of Christ, and, if so, 
why not wear that name? Today we read in many of 
our papers about the "Disciples of Christ" and in- 
variably the word disciples is capitalized. The name 
disciple, when so capitalized, is as denominational, and 

Eighty-seven — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

therefore as divisive in character as any of those de- 
nominational or sectarian names which some of these 
very brethren who use the term so ardently oppose. 
Let us be consistent. Let us shun sectarianism as 
though it were a plague. Let us not condemn others 
for doing that of which we may be guilty ourselves. 
We are disciples, but we are more. We are obedient 
disciples. We are redeemed disciples. A disciple is a 
fjLadrp-rjs, a learner. A man may be a /xaOrjT^ or 
learner of Christ, and never be a Christian at all. 
A Christian is not only a disciple, or learner, but he 
is an obedient disciple; he puts into practice what he 
learns. Nicodemus was a disciple, or learner, but as 
far as we know he never became a "Christ-one/' an 
obedient follower of Christ. Joseph, of Arimathaea, 
was a disciple, but he did not possess the courage to 
become a Christian. The name Christian means so 
much more than disciple ! It comprehends all of 
the meaning of disciple and more. After the Antioch 
church is established and God's people receive for the 
first time the vision of a world-wide conquest for the 
King, the disciples are the recipients of a new name, 
and the Holy Spirit, using Peter merely as the trans- 
mitting agency, exhorts us to "glorify God in that 
name." 

Because the people of the great restoration move- 
ment have contended so firmly and uncompromisingly 
for those names by which the members of the apostolic 
church were called, and because they have preached 
that the church, as a body, should wear the names 
that were worn by it in the beginning, they have 

— Eighty-eight 



THE DIVINE NAME 

frequently been accused of arrogating to themselves 
a monopoly on these very names. The question has 
many times been asked of them, "Are you the only 
Christians? Do you not consider it selfish to wear 
this name? Do you not, by wearing it unChristianize 
others ?" Like the Yankee, we would ask our inter- 
rogators the question, "Are you the only Baptists?" 
We believe in baptism, and practice it. Every man 
who baptizes is a baptist. Are you the only Congre- 
gationalists ? We use the congregational form of 
church polity. Do you not consider it selfish to wear 
the name? Do you not uncongregationalize us if you 
are Congregationalists ? Are you the only Methodists ? 
We are methodical in our work for the Master. Are 
you not selfish in wearing the name? Are you the 
only Presbyterians ? We believe in the spiritual super- 
vision or oversight of the bishops or elders. Do you 
not selfishly unpresbyterianize us by wearing the 
name? 

We have never claimed that we are the only Chris- 
tians, but that we are Christians only, and that claim 
is the very opposite of selfishness; it is indeed the 
very essence of unselfishness. Every obedient believer 
in Christ is a "Christ-one" and is so recognized by 
us, and just as long as he glorifies God in that name 
he is unselfish because it is the name which all true 
followers of Christ love. It is a stumbling-block to 
none; all are willing to wear it, all are agreed that 
it is right, and it never acts as a factor of division. 
A man becomes selfish only when he adds to that 
name another of human origin, for he thus erects a 

Eighty-nine — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

denominational or sectional wall between himself and 
his brother. He becomes narrow because he re- 
fuses fellowship to him who may already be a Chris- 
tian unless that one also upholds the barrier by him- 
self wearing a denominational or unscriptural name. 
To wear the name Christian is the glorious privilege 
of all of God's children, and because I realize it and 
appropriate the blessing am I any the less thoughtful 
of you? or, because I enjoy it, am I thereby wronging 
you? No! No! If you are slighting your God-given 
privilege, the blame must attach to yourself, for it is 
due to your own neglect and not to any desire to be 
selfish on our part. We could not deprive you of it 
and if we could do so, we would not. It is yours ; 
take it, wear it and in it glorify your God. 

"Well," inquires one, "what's in a name, anyway? 
I don't think the name makes any difference." It is, 
however, very noticeable that those who ask this ques- 
tion as a rule flatly refuse to wear any so-called re- 
ligious name other than the one which they already 
wear. People sometimes fight over their religious 
names. A Methodist refuses to be called a Baptist 
or a Congregationalist a Mormon. A name means 
something; indeed, every name worn by the great de- 
nominations emphasizes some doctrine peculiar to 
that particular people by which it is worn. And this 
is so beautifully true of the name Christian. It ex- 
alts a person — Christ — it glorifies the individual be- 
cause it makes known to the world that he is a 
"Christ-one." 

Then again we will agree that most men usually 

— Ninety 



THE DIVINE NAME 

love their own family names pretty well. Although 
your name may be good, and even famous, and al- 
though the sound of it may be rhythmically beauti- 
ful, like the musical name Jones or Smith, yet frank- 
ly I prefer the old Irish "Kellems" to either of the 
two mentioned. I would not change my name with 
George Washington or "Teddy" Roosevelt, or even, 
though the temptation might be strong, with William 
Jennings Bryan himself. I am satisfied with my own 
because it means something to me. 

Suppose that some day your wife would come to 
you and say, "Now, I like your name pretty well, I 
think it is nice and I enjoy the sound of it, and all 
that, but I like the name Smith better; so hereafter I 
shall be known as Mrs. Smith." In such a case as 
that, think you, there would be anything in a name? 
Or again, suppose that your rich uncle should die, 
leaving a will in which he bequeaths to one John A. 
Jones the sum of one million dollars. If your name 
was John A. Jones and there wasn't another in the 
world, would there be anything in the name? 

In God's word a name is considered to be of 
value. Jesus says, "Thus it is written, and thus it 
behooved Christ to suffer, and that repentance and 
remission of sins should be preached in his name unto 
all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem." (Luke 
24:46-47.) Christ surely considers a name here to 
be of importance. We are baptized into a name, 
and it certainly makes a difference what name it is. 
"Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing 
them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, 

Ninety-one — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all 
things whatsoever I have commanded you, and lo, I 
am with you always, even unto the end of the world." 
(Matt. 28:19-20.) Peter tells us that we are bap- 
tized in a name, as he speaks to the multitudes on the 
day of Pentecost, "Repent ye, and be baptized every 
one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remis- 
sion of your sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the 
Holy Spirit." (Acts 2:38.) If I, today, were to im- 
merse a man in the name of Martin Luther, John 
Wesley or Alexander Campbell would it be a valid 
Christian baptism? Certainly not. It is made a bap- 
tism only when the seal of the Father, Son and Holy 
Spirit is affixed. We are baptized only when we are 
immersed in and into a name. 

When Paul came to Ephesus in one of his later 
journeys he found there certain disciples who had been 
baptized unto John's baptism. After thoroughly 
questioning them about it, he said unto them, "John 
baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying to 
the people that they should believe on Him who should 
come after him, that is, on Jesus. And when they 
heard this they were baptized into the name of the 
Lord Jesus." (Acts 19:4-5.) Their baptism under the 
new dispensation was invalid unless it wore the seal 
of the Lord Jesus. 

Barnabas and Paul risked their lives again and 
again for a name. "It seemed good unto us, having 
come to one accord, to choose out men and send 
them unto you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, 
men who have hazarded their lives for the name of 

— Ninety-two 



THE DIVINE NAME 

our Lord Jesus Christ." (Acts 15:25-26.) Paul tells 
us that every knee shall bow and every tongue confess 
a name. "Therefore also God highly exalted him 
and gave unto him a name which is above every name, 
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of 
things in heaven, and things on earth, and things un- 
der the earth, and that every tongue should confess 
that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the 
Father." (Phil. 2:9-11.) Life and salvation are to 
be given in one name, and one only. "And in none 
other is there salvation; for neither is there any 
other name under heaven that is given among men 
wherein we must be saved." (Acts 4:12.) 

If repentance, forgiveness, remission of sins, life 
and salvation are only important when preached in a 
name, then there must surely be something in that 
name. 

The followers of Christ, even though they have 
worn human names, have nevertheless always con- 
sidered that there was something in the divine name.. 
Christian. It has ever been to them and is today a 
name by which to conjure. When they have wished 
to charm the world they have invariably used "that 
worthy name." 

When that young Congregational pastor, Francis 
E. Clark, saw at the close of a great revival in the 
church of which he was minister that a society must 
be formed to hold the young people and give them a 
clearer conception of the opportunities of the Christ- 
life, he gave it the name "Young People's Society of 
Christian Endeavor." In honor of its founder it might 

Ninety-three — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

have been called, "Young People's Society of Congre- 
gational Endeavor," but when a name is wanted to 
lend enthusiasm to the movement, the name Chris- 
tian must be employed. When an organization was 
formed to meet, in a practical way, the needs of young 
manhood, along moral and spiritual lines, an organiza- 
tion in which, under the directions of spiritually- 
minded men, young men might enjoy a man's sports 
in a man's way, and at the same time receive whole- 
some, spiritual nurture, the name given to the organi- 
zation was the Young Men's Christian Association." 

When among women an organized movement was 
launched against the legalized liquor traffic, that which 
gave it its first great impetus and caused it to sweep 
like an irresistible avalanche over the whole continent 
was the charming name which it bore, "The Women's 
Christian Temperance Union." Now it might have 
been the Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian or Congre- 
gational Union, but when a name was needed which 
would charm and win, that name was found in the 
sublime word — Christian. 

When the denominational world wanted a name 
which would attract attention to the literature which 
they wished to send out they found in "Christian" the 
name which would make it universally acceptable to 
all. The Methodist Church, with its great chain of 
"Advocates" stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacif- 
ic, might have largely exalted the name "Methodist" 
by entitling their paper "Methodist Advocate," but they 
wisely chose to honor and glorify the divine name; 

— Ninety-four 



THE DIVINE NAME 

for upon every issue of their magnificent paper we 
read with delight the name "Christian Advocate." 

Presbyterianism might have emphasized the rule 
of the presbytery by applying the name Presbyterian 
to their official organ, but they decided far better 
when they gave to it a name which would not only 
bespeak for it a ready acceptance, but would more 
faithfully represent the spirit in which the paper was 
issued, "The Christian Observer." When Methodism 
sent out to the world a magazine which should be as 
undenominational as possible and which should act as 
a forum where all alike might give free opinion on 
religious questions, it wore the name "Christian 
Herald." 

Those great weeklies of the restoration movement, 
so devoted as they are to glorifying God in the name 
Christian, wear names which are highly significant of 
the pleas of the people of whom they claim to be rep- 
resentative organs, "The Christian Standard," "The 
Christian-Evangelist," and the "Christian Century." 
If those papers which bear upon their title pages the 
name Christian were destroyed, seventy-five per cent 
of the world's religious literature would perish. The 
great denominations have realized the peculiar power 
and charm of the divine name when used upon their 
religious literature, even though their individual mem- 
bers refuse to wear that name as the only one in 
which to glorify God. It is worse than foolish for 
any man to say that there is nothing in a name. 

Ninety-five — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

III. Five Reasons Why Every Follower of 

Christ Should Wear the Name Christian, 

and That Alone. 

1. The church is declared to be the bride of 
Christ, and the bride must always wear the husband's 
name. Paul most confidently affirms this when, in 
writing to the Corinthian brethren, he says, "I am 
jealous over you with a godly jealousy, for I espoused 
you to one husband that I might present you as a pure 
virgin to Christ." (2 Cor. 11:2.) If the church is 
the bride of Christ, then let her not wear the name of 
others, but let her be true to her husband and wear 
his name. 

2. Simple and complete obedience to Christ makes 
a man a Christian and a Christian only. When we 
are baptized into Christ, and by that action put on 
Christ, we become "Christ-ones," and any action be- 
yond this by which another name is added is an ac- 
tion unauthorized by the King. The modern union 
revival often furnishes a striking example of this ac- 
tion by which a name other than Christian is added. 
After the revival is over and six or eight hundred 
conversions have been accomplished, if these con- 
verts have listened to the gospel and to the very best 
of their knowledge have become obedient to that gospel, 
what are they? Why, they are Christians, of course. 
True, they are Christians. Now, if they are permitted 
to remain as they are, what will they be? Without 
a doubt they would still be Christians. But if on the 
last day of the revival the ministers representing the 

— Ninety-six 



THE DIVINE, NAME 

different denominations which have been so earnestly 
co-operating in the union effort to save men, arise, 
as they have so many times done, and call out to these 
newly made Christians, "All desiring to be Methodists 
come with me, or all wishing to be Baptists come with 
me," and so on until all have spoken; what process 
was it that made the converts Methodists, Baptists, 
Congregationalists or Presbyterians? Was it their 
obedience to the commands of Jesus Christ? Assur- 
edly not, for such obedience made them " Christ- 
ones. " Well, then, what was the action? It was one 
over and beyond the law of the Teacher. In the 
union revival they united to make Christians ; after 
it was over, they divided to make sectarians. When 
by virtue of faith in Christ, and obedience to his 
law, men are made Christian, why not allow them 
such to remain? 

3. A third obvious reason why every disciple 
should wear the divine name and that alone is that 
the truly great reformers and leaders of God's people 
have desired it and have earnestly entreated their fol- 
lowers to wear it. Luther, the majestic marshal of 
the forces of German reformation, exhorts his fol- 
lowers, "Do not call yourselves Lutherans, but call 
yourselves Christians/' 

Wesley, brilliant, and still the humble, spirit-guided 
Christian, cries out as he sees the impending evil of 
division, "I would to God all party names were for- 
gotten." 

Alexander Campbell, the gifted advocate of the 
unification of God's people, urges upon all true lovers 

Ninety-seven — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

of God, "Abandon all party names and take the name 
Christian." 

Paul, veteran of a thousand battles for the name, 
deplores schism and contention ; "Now this, I mean, 
that some of you saith, I am of Paul, and I of 
Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ. Is Christ 
divided? Was Paul crucified for you or were ye 
baptized into the name of Paul?" (1 Cor. 1:12-13.) 
These and others of God's heroes, realizing that they 
were unworthy of the grand honor of having the 
church named after them, and knowing that such an 
action could only result in sectarianism and denom- 
inationalism among the people of God, have earnestly 
desired that their followers should wear the name 
divinely given first at Antioch. 

Do we not, therefore, do them injury rather than 
honor when we, against their expressed wishes that 
we wear the divine name, call ourselves after their 
names, which they wore. 

4. The name Christian should also be worn by 
every disciple ' who loves Christ and desires the ad- 
vancement of his kingdom, because it is absolutely 
the only name upon which Christian Union can be 
consummated, when that time shall come that God's 
people, seeing the folly of a divided Christendom, will 
join their hands and hearts for the final conquest of 
the nations. Christian union is coming. It must 
come. The forces of Christ are at last opening their 
eyes to the stern fact that union will mean life and 
victory; disunion, ruin and death. When that union 

— Ninety-eight 



THE DIVINE NAME 

comes, to it must be given a name, and surely that 
name will be the one upon which all of the denomina- 
tions agree, and upon "Christian" they agree now. 
Concerning it not one dissenting voice is heard. 
Every disciple redeemed will acknowledge himself to 
be a Christian, although, before the world, he may 
wear a name human in origin and divisive in char- 
acter. If, then, one desires to see the glorious union 
of God's people brought to pass, let him divorce him- 
self from everything which will in any way act as a 
barrier to the accomplishment of that desire. Hu- 
man names are barriers to union; the divine name is 
that under which it can and will be brought to pass. 
5. The divine name is declared by Paul to be the 
great family name. "For this cause I bow my knees 
unto the Father, from whom every family in heaven 
and on earth, is named." (Eph. 3:14, 15.) Oh, how 
beautiful is the thought which he here expresses ! 
"The whole, or every family in heaven and on earth," 
is called by the wonderful family name. All those 
blood-washed throngs whose praises resound through- 
out their immortal home; our fathers, our mothers, 
our brothers and sisters, our wives and our children, 
who have taken the journey before us are members of 
that redeemed family of God, the wearers and shar- 
ers with us of "that worthy name." As members of 
that great family should we not be glad to wear that 
name ? It should be to every son of God a delight un- 
speakable, a joy unending. 

Ninety-nine — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

CONCLUSION. 

How glorious is the name ! "If any man suffer as 
a Christian let him not be ashamed." And have the 
heroes of God ever been ashamed of it, even though 
because of it the keenest, most excruciating suffering 
that fiendish Roman cruelty could devise were heaped 
upon them ? On the arena's red sands, with the howls 
of Rome's blood-lustful thousands thundering around 
them, they fought for that name, the half-starved 
beasts of Numidia's jungles, and as the last drop of 
Christian blood dyed the sands a deeper hue, took 
their journey home with a smile of heaven's own 
giving upon their lips, and a joy eternal in their 
hearts. In vats of boiling oil they sang, until, by the 
hissing death their voices were forever stilled, the 
glories and praises of the name. With the flames of 
Caesar's death-fires curling and licking around them, 
with the smoke of that fire filling their nostrils, even 
to the last choking breath they glorified, they exalted, 
they magnified the name of their God. For a name 
Peter and John were beaten ; for a name they heard 
the clang of prison bars and felt the pressure of the 
prisoner's chains. For a name Paul could joyfully 
say, even though gloomy dungeon walls greeted every 
turn of his eye and with the prospect of an immediate, 
horrid death before him, "I have fought the good 
fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the 
faith, henceforth there is laid up for me the crown 
of righteousness which the Lord, the Righteous Judge, 
shall give to me at that day, and not unto me only, 

— One hundred 



THE DIVINE NAMB 

but also to all them that have loved his appearing/' 
(2 Tim. 4:7, 8.) Oh, what delight should be ours to 
be counted worthy to wear that name, the name made 
glorious by sweat and blood and ten thousand noble 
deaths ! Withered be our tongues and cursed our 
lips, if, knowing better, we shall attempt to glorify 
our God in any name other than the name "Christian." 



One hundred one- 



IV 
THE MIRACULOUS CHRIST 



IV 
The Miraculous Christ 



Text: "Even so, every good tree bringeth forth 
good fruit; but the corrupt tree bringeth forth evil 
fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, 
neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit." 
Matt. 7:17, 18. 

Modern scientific research has demonstrated the 
truth of this simple statement of the Great Teacher 
in so many ways that it has been almost universally 
accepted as axiomatic. In the old German proverb it 
was expressed in the statement, "Der Apfel f'dllt nicht 
weit vom Stanim,;" "the apple falls not far from the 
trunk," or "like father, like son." To state the truth 
in words familiar to even the smallest schoolboy, 
"kind begets its kind." 

The statement of the text refers not only to trees 
and those living forms belonging alone to the vege- 
table kingdom, but our modern researches have shown 
that it applies to every form of life, from the most 
minute until in the mastodon the climax of things 
living is reached. Good blood means good stock. 
In modern times men begin the education of their 
children long before their birth. Pure blood, or a 
good tree, never fails to produce the good fruit. 
Just as no man has ever seen a stunted, dwarfed tree 

One hundred five — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

bring forth ripe, luscious fruit; equally true is it that 
in the animal kingdom no dwarfed, stunted animal, 
with blood full of poison, ever brought forth off- 
spring distinctive because of its power and beauty. 
In his letter to the Galatians, Paul states the same 
great principle when he says, "Be not deceived ; God 
is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that 
shall he also reap. For he that soweth unto his own 
flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that 
soweth unto the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap eternal 
life." (Gal. 6:7, 8.) 

In this day in which we live it seems to be con- 
sidered fashionable and indicative of profound 
scholarship for one to be skeptical concerning every- 
thing in the Bible bordering on the edge of the 
miraculous. The purported miracles of Christ, to 
this school of men, if not gross fabrications are at 
least figments of the imaginations of the so-called 
inspired writers, or are simply supernatural powers 
attributed to him by the blind hero-worship of his 
followers. He did not convert the water into wine 
at Cana of Galilee, nor raise from the dead the 
widow's son at Nain. The disciples were self-de- 
ceived when they thought they saw him walk upon 
the water, and the transfiguration upon the green 
slopes of snow-crowned Hermon was merely an hal- 
lucination brought on by anxiety and weariness. He 
did not heal the sick; he gave no sight to the blind; 
neither did he restore to the lame the power to walk. 
The idea of miracles is absurd and utterly unworthy 

— One hundred six 



THE MIRACULOUS CHRIST 

of that one who makes any pretensions at all to 
scholarship. 

Yet, while these men are so complacently deny- 
ing the reported miracles of Christ, or claiming that 
all forms of miracles are in the nature of this world 
impossible, they are living in the presence of the 
miraculous every day. The tiny seed is dropped into 
the cool earth; the gentle rains water it; the kindly 
rays of the sun warm it until, lo! it breaks trium- 
phantly forth from its prison into new, and as time 
progresses, ever-changing form. Can we explain its 
beautiful evolution? What is life? Who can solve 
the problem which it presents? The towering 
gray pyramids of Egypt standing upon the line be- 
tween the desolate wastes of the L,ybian desert and 
the fertile valley of the Nile, had held prisoner in 
their gloomy hearts some quantities of wheat for 
four millenniums. The hands which toiled to build 
themselves memorials in those imperishable piles 
have long since been crossed in their eternal sleep, and 
he by whose command they labored is but a name 
soon forgotten; those gigantic despotisms which then 
thrived amid all the glories of their boasted arts and 
sciences have long ago been buried in the graveyard 
of fallen empires, yet these grains of wheat, by which 
perhaps the one who planted them in stone hoped to 
fortify himself against some unforeseen famine, 
when after their four-thousand-years long entomb- 
ment, they were dropped into the earth, sprang forth 
into plenteous harvest. The germ of life was there; 
somewhere in the tiny heart it lay inactive through 

One hundred seven — 



GLORYING IN -THE CROSS 

the lifetime of half a dozen nations only to burst 
forth into beauteous new form when earth and air, 
sun and rain, united their efforts to bring it to 
fruition. Who can explain life? Twentieth century 
skill can construct a grain of wheat so identical in 
even the minutest detail with those grains discovered 
in the Egyptian pyramid that the most critical ob- 
server can scarce distinguish a difference, yet when 
it is planted in the earth it will not grow And why? 
Because the first grain has the germ of life which 
only God can give, while in the second, even though 
perfect in form and detail, that germ is lacking. Life 
itself is a miracle ; unexplained and inexplicable with- 
out God. 

Not only is life in all its wonderful and multi- 
farious manifestations a miracle, but as Stevenson, in 
his essay, "Pulvis et Pumba," so aptly says, "It is a 
miracle and a wonder that we live at all." We live 
ever in the presence of death. In ten myriads of 
forms the monster menaces us. As we eat or sleep; 
as we work or play; he is solemnly stalking near. 
From the moment that the first morning rays peep 
over the eastern hills until, the golden circle com- 
pleted, he there smiles again, we tread the vale of 
death. Wonderful is it that we live at all ! 

Surrounded as we are by a universe of miracles, 
how foolish for one to say that the miraculous is im- 
possible. Only a frank and free acknowledgment 
of the miraculous can make our universe rational or 
understandable. Those who deny that the miracles 
of Christ are possible are "straining at a gnat and 

— One hundred eight 



THE MIRACULOUS CHRIST 

swallowing a camel," because at the same moment 
that they make their denial they accept Jesus as a 
historical personage; the one who was admittedly 
the most astonishing miracle of his time. 

The brilliant and versatile Benjamin Disraeli, 
astounded at the marvelous influence of Jesus, ex- 
claims in a burst of fiery eloquence, "The wildest 
dreams of their rabbis have been far exceeded. Has 
not Jesus conquered Europe and changed its name 
to Christendom? All countries that refuse the cross 
wither, and the time will come when the vast com- 
munities and countless myriads of America and Aus- 
tralia, looking upon Europe as Europe now looks upon 
Greece and wondering how so small a space could 
have achieved such great deeds, will find music in 
the songs of Zion and solace in the parables of 
Galilee." 

The unhappy and ill-fated Lord Byron, wonder- 
ingly comparing Jesus with men in their follies and 
miseries, solemnly gives words to the noblest con- 
ception of the Man of Galilee which has ever blessed 
the mind of man; "If ever man was God, or God 
was man, Jesus Christ was both." 

PROPOSITION. 

My proposition concerning Jesus in this address 
is stated in the following form: "The fact that Jesus 
was not in any sense or respect a product of his time, 
but that he is good fruit, while the tree from which 
he sprang, or is supposed to have sprung, by those 

One hundred nine — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

who deny his divinity, is evil, is conclusive proof that 
he is the Miraculous Christ, "the Word that became 
flesh; the only begotten Son of God." 

ARGUMENT. 
I. An Objection to the Proposition Answered. 

Immediately upon the announcement of the above 
proposition, our friends, the disbelievers in the mirac- 
ulous, file what to them appears to be an insuperable 
objection. "The fact that Jesus was not a product 
of his time is no proof of his miraculous or deific 
character, because there have been many to whom 
we have not attributed such nature who have been 
products of their respective times, but in thought and 
action have been far in advance of the ages in which 
they lived. If upon this proposition Jesus is claimed 
to be divine, then equally divine are Shakespeare, 
Burns, Napoleon, and a score of others, because 
neither were they products of the times in which they 
lived." 

If we consider Shakespeare carefully can this 
claim that he is a freak or sport, in no sense the 
product of his time, be substantiated? The age of 
Shakespeare was one not especially famous for its 
moral standards. Liberties almost akin to license, 
indifferently accorded to men then, if exercised to- 
day, would even cause the man who is but average 
in his morals to blush with shame. While misde- 
meanors were punished with sterner rigor than like 
offenses of our days ; yet the public conscience was 

— One hundred ten 



THB MIRACULOUS CHRIST 

far less lively at their committal than would be the 
public conscience of modern men. And was Shakes- 
peare here in advance of his age? Ah, sadly must 
we answer, he was not even apace with it. He was 
not even as good as his time. How sad it is that 
history must record of one whose pen seemed afire 
with heaven's own wisdom that he was a thief and 
a libertine. However deep our admiration may be 
for the man whose name so justly stands at the top 
of that long list of those whose names have, by their 
works of literature, been made immortal, we cannot 
erase even by our reverence those dark blots with 
which his immoral deeds have dimmed the luster of 
that glorious name forever. In his personal life he 
was every whit the product of his moral-lax age. Or 
yet, if we study him from the viewpoint of his 
genius can we rightly affirm that he was not a product 
of his time? Were those mighty tragedies which 
will ever thrill, inspire and delight all men, the fruits 
of that one tremendous brain alone? Or did he not 
draw from those great men who had preceded him 
years and even centuries before, as well as from his 
contemporaries, many of whom were almost as il- 
lustrious as he himself? View it as we will, Shakes- 
peare was simply the embodiment of the spirit of his 
age; its finest, noblest and most representative son. 
His was the age of Sidney, Marlow and others whose 
names are almost household terms. His was the age 
of the brilliant L,ord Bacon. It was pre-eminently 
the age of drama. His race was one passionately 
fond of literature and productive of the most noble 

One hundred eleven — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

and enduring forms of it. If a primitive savage tribe 
in the heart of Africa's darkest jungle^ad given to 
the world a Shakespeare we would be forced to 
acknowledge that the gift was a miracle or the impos- 
sible ; that a corrupt tree can bear good fruit. Shakes- 
peare was simply the climax, the acme, the snow- 
peak of his age, but the product, the son, of all that 
was and of all that had gone before him. 

And where shall we class Robert Burns? Was 
the brilliant Scot, who could see beauty in the tiny- 
things of earth, whose pen could exalt them to posi- 
tions of dignity and respect, a product of the age in 
which he lived? Assuredly he was. Though he 
could weep over the ruined home of the little mouse, 
the virtue of "the lass that made the bed to me," was 
to him as common merchandise. One of the worst 
of licentious libertines was Bobby; not even on a 
level with the moral standard of his time. In the 
Bard's Epitaph, which he wished to be his own, he 
confesses his depravity when he mournfully wails, 

"The poor inhabitant below, 
Was quick to learn and wise to know, 

And keenly felt the friendly glow and softer flame, 
But thoughtless follies laid him low 
And stained his name." 

Ah ! You have it right, Bobby Burns ! You have 
it right ! 'Twas drink and woman and lust and un- 
restrained desire that laid him low, and that fair 
name, the very symbol of love for the humble things 
of life, unloved ; how much fairer it would have 
shone had it not been for just those thoughtless follies. 

— One hundred twelve 



THE MIRACULOUS CHRIST 

But if the claim of superhuman genius, based 
upon our proposition, fails in the case of Shakes- 
peare and Burns, does it not still hold good of the 
great Napoleon? That one of unparalleled military 
genius, who swept like a meteor across Europe's sky, 
still reddened by the glare of the French Revolution; 
that one at the thunder of whose legions kings pros- 
trated themselves, while their subjects quaked with 
terrible fear; that one to whom the hoary summits 
of the hitherto unconquerable Alps were but the 
stepping stones to still more lofty heights of fame ! 
Say you that this mighty one was the product of his 
age? Yes, and in every respect from which his life 
may be viewed. As Shakespeare represented an age 
at its best in literary excellence, just so Napoleon rep- 
resents a world at the highest point of its military 
power. His age was a military age; the age of the 
French Revolution. His prenatal training was mili- 
tary. While she still carried the future emperor in 
her womb, I^aeticia Bonaparte heroically endured 
the nerve-racking hardships of the march, the camp 
and the battle, side by side with her husband, and for 
the independence of her beloved Corsica. The babe 
was born with the hot war blood bounding feverish- 
ly through every vein. The war spirit was sucked 
into the tiny form with every intake of the maternal 
milk. The first objects upon which his baby eyes 
were opened were the dreadful implements of cruel 
war ; the uniform, the gun, the sword. His first 
and noblest hero was Paoli, the soldier-statesman lead- 
er in the cause of Corsican independence. As soon 

One hundred thirteen — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

as age permits he is sent to France to receive the 
education of a soldier ; an officer of artillery. Hered- 
ity, prenatal training, environment, education — all com- 
bined in evolving a soldier, a world general and a 
dictator. Thus even the Napoleonic genius may be 
explained by a knowledge of the tree from which he 
as the fruit, sprang; a war age, an age of "blood and 
iron." 

Consider also the personal life of Napoleon. Was 
it better than his age or as good? An age of deceit, 
of intrigue, of low standards of virtue among both 
sexes, an age trained in horrible cruelties by a quarter 
of a century of bloodshed and war, was Napoleon 
better than this? No! No! In cruelty he surpassed 
even the most cruel. Spurning the body of a French 
dragoon, who had died to satisfy an insane ambition, 
as it lay stark and cold on the frozen field of Eilau, 
the emperor sneeringly remarked to the officer ac- 
companying him, "mere rabble, mere rabble." When 
talking with some of his officers about the terrific 
loss of life among his soldiers, he impatiently ex- 
claims, "What care I for the lives of a million men? 
I am a soldier." When, by intrigue, he steals the 
reins of the French government, he coolly calls it a 
"Coup d' etat." Although he promised free govern- 
ment along democratic lines to those who had sacri- 
ficed so much to obtain it, yet, when that government 
had come into his hands it was so despotic that he 
might well have said with his kingly predecessor, 
Louis XIV, "IS etat c'est moi. (I am the state)." 

For virtue he cared nothing; woman was to him 

One hundred fourteen 



THE MIRACULOUS CHRIST 

merely a plaything, the means for the partial satis- 
faction of his insatiate bestial passions. He was the 
father of nine illegitimate children. Almost the last 
act of his life was the attempt in his autobiography 
to delude the people of France by telling them of his 
glorious reign, by which France had become the 
world's mightiest power. Eight millions of graves 
dotted the face of Europe from Russia's bitter plains 
to Spain's sunny hills, mute evidences of the benefits 
conferred by Napoleon. The flower of French man- 
hood perished. And for France ? No ! For Na- 
poleon. He whipped them with scorpions ; he blasted 
their homes, sacrificed their young men by millions; 
and left France poorer and weaker than he had 
found her. Still he writes, "When I die bury me 
on the banks of the Seine among the French people, 
whom I have so loved." Was this brutal, licentious 
monster a product of his time? Yes, the blackest 
and most wicked son of that black and wicked age. 
But as a still further answer to the objection of- 
fered, let us quote the words of the emperor him- 
self. Even his illimitable egotism would not permit 
him to make himself equal with Jesus. In conversa- 
tion with General Bertrand, at St. Helena, he says, 
"I know men and I tell you Jesus Christ was not a 
man. Superficial minds see a resemblance between 
Christ and the founders of empires, and the gods of 
other religions. That resemblance does not exist. 
There is between Christianity and other religions the 
distance of infinity. Alexander, Caesar and myself 
founded empires. But upon what did we rest the 

One hundred fifteen — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

creations of our genius? Upon force, sheer force. 
Jesus Christ alone founded his empire upon love; 
and at this hour millions of men would die for him. 
In every other existence but that of Christ how many 
imperfections ! From the first to the last he is the 
same; majestic and simple; infinitely firm and in- 
finitely gentle. He proposes to our faith a series of 
mysteries and commands with authority that we 
should believe them, giving no other reason than 
those tremendous words, 'I am God'." 

Where the great proposition which we have taken 
relative to the Christ holds firm is in the statement, 
"That he was not in any sense or respect the prod- 
uct of his time." Intellectually, morally and spirit- 
ually, he was not only absolutely different from his 
age, but shows no connection whatever with it. If 
it could be shown that in one particular he was like 
his age, then our proposition would be materially 
weakened, but even this one instance cannot be shown. 

II. Christ Not a Product of His Time. 

1. Intellectually he was not. (1) Christ always 
silenced his enemies. Never were they successful in 
their numerous and cunning attempts "to ensnare 
him in his talk." The hypocritical Pharisees ap- 
proached him as recorded in the twenty-second chap- 
ter of Matthew, that great trial chapter, fawning be- 
fore him and flattering him with the oily words, 
"Teacher, we know thou art true and teachest the 
way of God in truth, and carest not for anyone: for 

— One hundred sixteen 



THE MIRACULOUS CHRIST 

thou regardest not the person of man. Tell us, there- 
fore, what thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute 
unto Caesar, or not?" This question, so cunningly 
asked, was ingeniously devised to provoke immediate 
interest. The listening Jews will be interested at 
once, for if he affirms that it is lawful, then he is a 
traitor to all his training as a Jew; he is a friend of 
the hated Caesar, the oppressor of Israel. The Romans 
will be interested, because if he affirms that it is 
unlawful, he is a traitor to Caesar, and as such he is 
deserving of a traitor's death. Truly, the dilemma 
was an embarrassing one, and to the minds of the 
complacently waiting Pharisees, one that could not 
fail of its purpose to entrap the Nazarene. What- 
ever answer he may give he is bound to make an 
enemy of one party or the other. Sneeringly they 
awaited his words, quietly rubbing their hands in 
fiendish glee at the prospect of his undoing. But 
the keen mind of the Saviour was not to be so easily 
entrapped, for with his wonderful insight into human 
nature, he perceived their wicked intent. Looking 
into their eyes until the very souls within them seemed 
to shrivel before his purity, he scathingly inquires, 
"Why make ye trial of me, ye hypocrites? Show 
me the tribute money." And they brought to him a 
denarius. And he said unto them, "Whose is the 
image and superscription?" They said unto him, 
"Caesar's." Even before he answers their question 
he has forced them to answer it themselves by ac- 
knowledging the ownership of the coin. Then calmly 
came his answer, "Atto^otc vv ra Kataapos Kaiaapi 

One hundred seventeen — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

koI ra tov I Oeov tw $t<j>" — "Render, therefore, or 
pay back, unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, 
and unto God the things that are God's." Confused, 
amazed, stricken with a sense of guilt, they who were 
erstwhile so confident, at this clear answer of their 
prey, slink away like beaten dogs. Both Jew and 
Roman are answered, and so skillfully that the en- 
mity of neither is incurred. 

This dilemma was placed one time in all of its 
original setting before a company of Brahmans ; a 
people who for keenness of perception into the finer 
intellectual problems have no superiors and but few 
peers. They listened with marked interest to the 
question propounded by the Pharisees and the Herod- 
ians, it having been explained to them that the Jews 
and Romans were at sword's points on this very ques- 
tion. When Jesus gave his answer, each turned to 
his companion in profound astonishment; then in ad- 
miration they shouted as a man, "He has answered 
them, he has answered them!" 

In the same twenty-second chapter of Matthew 
another intellectual battle is recorded, but this time 
with the Sadducees, "they that say there is no resur- 
rection." They came to Jesus with their stock il- 
lustration, one which they had long cherished as being 
absolutely unanswerable. "Teacher, Moses said, 'If a 
man die, having no children, his brother shall marry 
his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother.' Now 
there were with us seven brethren : and the first 
married and deceased, and having no seed left his 
wife unto his brother ; in like manner the second, also, 

— One hundred eighteen 



THE MIRACULOUS CHRIST 

and the third, unto the seventh. And after them all, 
the woman died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose 
wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her." 
(Matt. 22:24-27.) What confidence was theirs as 
they hurl this hitherto unanswerable question ! We 
can almost feel the sneer, "Aha, Master, now we have 
you ! If there is to be a resurrection, how, pray, 
will you dispose of this case?" Without one trace of 
agitation Jesus answers them, and the answer pro- 
duced the effect of an exploded bomb among them. 
"Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power 
of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry 
nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels in 
heaven." (Matt. 22:29-50.) 

Luke in his Gospel, chapter 5:17-27, relates still 
another incident showing how quick was the mind of 
Jesus in the presence of every enemy. Great multi- 
tudes had come "out of every village of Galilee and 
Judea." The proud doctors of the law, the hypo- 
critically pious Pharisees, and perhaps scores of the 
common people, to catch the wonderful words as 
they fell from the lips of the Teacher. And upon that 
day the power of the Lord was upon Jesus to heal. 
As he earnestly taught the eager multitudes they 
crowded closer and closer about him, so that the four 
bearing, upon his weary couch, the man long sick of 
the palsy could find no access to him. Climbing to 
the roof they quickly removed the tiles and let the 
man down "in the midst before Jesus." Seeing their 
great faith, all the compassion of his great heart was 
stirred, and he exclaims, "Man, thy sins are forgiven 

One hundred nineteen — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

thee." Like the shock of an electric current was the 
effect of the words upon the hearers. At once the 
Scribes and Pharisees began to murmur fiercely 
among themselves and reason concerning this, to 
them, terrible statement. All their Jewish training 
rebelled against the calm usurpation of that author- 
ty which they well knew belonged to God alone. In 
anger they questioned, "Who is this that speaketh 
blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?" 
But Jesus perceiving their reasonings answered and 
said unto them, "Why reason ye in your hearts? 
Which is easier to say? Thy sins be forgiven thee, or, 
Arise and walk." Not which is the easier statement 
to make, as so many have commonly interpreted, but 
which statement is indicative of more power on the 
part of the one making it? To paraphrase and inter- 
pret the question, "If I say, They sins be forgiven 
thee; is not that a statement indicating greater power 
and authority than to say, Arise and walk?" Sin is 
the foundation of all disease, and if the Master could 
forgive sin he assuredly could perform the much easier 
task of healing disease, the result of sin. Then, to 
clinch his argument, he says, "But that ye may know 
that the Son of man hath authority on earth to for- 
give sins (he said unto him that was palsied) I say 
unto thee, Arise and take up thy couch and go unto 
thy house." As the man, glorifying God, hilarious 
with the joy of renewed strength, arose and de- 
parted, carrying his former bed of torture, fear and 
amazement took hold of all those who saw and heard, 

— One hundred twenty 



THE MIRACULOUS CHRIST 

and as they wondered they said, "We have seen 
strange things today." 

(2) As a philosopher, Jesus was not a product 
of his time. 

Luke tells us (Luke 2:41) that at the age of 
twelve he amazed the doctors in the temple, both by 
the questions which he asked them and the percep- 
tion which was his, as he listened to their teachings. 
Viewed from every standpoint the philosophy of 
Jesus was revolutionary and utterly at variance with 
all the accepted usages and customs of his day. 

(a) Politically it was revolutionary; not in any 
respect the product of the political economy of the 
time. The Greeks and Romans had almost the same 
idea of the state and man's relation to it. To them 
the state was the law. There could be no powei 
higher. What the state decreed must be right by 
virtue of the fact that the state had decreed it. The 
modern statement, "My country right or wrong," 
almost exactly describes their attitude, with the ex- 
ception that to them the country would never be 
wrong. The "Antigone" of Sophocles, or "King 
Lear," of Shakespeare, vividly portrays this passion- 
ate devotion of the pagan world to the state. The 
gravest crimes were not those committed against the 
gods or against men, but rather such crimes as trea- 
son or rebellion; those committed against the state. 
The severest of all severe punishments were heaped 
upon those who dared to plot against the welfare of 
the state. The idea of the church apart from the 
state was not known to the pagan world. The church, 

One hundred twenty-one — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

or religion, was merely a part or department of the 
state as in modern usage the legislative is but one 
branch of government. Zeus, Hera, Jove or Mars 
were not separate or apart from the state, but their 
interests, their desires, their associations were those 
of the earth, and the earth was the state. They were 
as much a part of the life of the state as the em- 
peror or senate; the army or navy. There was no 
line of demarkation drawn. Religion was subserved 
to the interests of the state and yet not subserved 
because it never intruded objections that might ob- 
struct the purposes or movements of the state. 
Moral as well as religious standards were determined 
by the state and not by the gods. 

The Jewish idea of the state; of man's relation to 
it and that of the church, was almost the exact op- 
posite of the Greco-Roman. To the Jew the state 
was merely a department of the great religious order. 
The government, departments and laws of the state 
were determined by the divine will. When King Saul 
is chosen he is selected according to divine direction. 
When he rules contrary to the will of Jehovah he is 
punished severely by the higher power. David is 
anointed by the messenger of God and by the will 
and according to the will of Jehovah he must rule. 
To the Jew his religion was the state, not the state his 
religion. 

The political economy of Jesus might be called a 
combination of the Jewish and the Greco-Roman, yet 
if combination it be, it is different and utterly at 
variance with both of them. Concerning man's re- 

— One hundred twenty-two 



THE MIRACULOUS CHRIST 

lation to the state one of the clearest statements of 
his philosophy is that already referred to in the ad- 
dress, "Render, therefore, unto Caesar, the things that 
are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." 
The Christian bears a positive relation to the state. 
He is a part of it although his moral and spiritual 
standards are not to be determined by that state, but 
by the law that cometh from God. Those duties 
which man owes to God cannot be rendered by simple 
obedience to the state but they must be paid to Je- 
hovah himself and in the coin dictated by Him. 

Of the relation of the church to the state, Christ 
said, "My kingdom is not of this world." His king- 
dom was to be spiritual, the kingdom of the heart, and 
as such its laws would never interfere with the prog- 
ress of the state but would rather exercise an ac- 
centuating influence upon all forward movements of 
the state. Paul in writing of the fruit of the Spirit 
explains the relationship of Christ's kingdom and 
the kingdoms of the world when he says, "But the 
fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, 
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self con- 
trol; against such there is no law." (Gal. 5:22-24.) 
The subject therefore in this kingdom is above all 
law. He is to be in the world and physically he is 
of the world, for he must eat, sleep, live the life in 
the flesh as do other men; yet in his allegiance to 
the King he is not of the world. Church and state 
are to be separated because the activity of each lies 
in a totally different realm; the state having to do 
with those things which are fundamentally of the 

One hundred 'twenty-three — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

flesh and the church with that realm in which lie the 
things of the Spirit. Thus in the philosophy of Jesus 
the church is within the state but not of the state. 
In a word, then, he has given unto us that philosophy 
which we so proudly proclaim as distinctively mod- 
ern. 

(b) The economic and social philosophy of 
Jesus is not in any sense a product of his time. 

To the pagan world the idea of universal brother- 
hood was a shibboleth unthought of and unknown. 
Their social systems made such an idea repugnant 
to all classes. To the Greek or Roman a man was a 
brother if he were so fortunate as to belong to the 
same nationality or caste as himself. And even then 
the idea was the Buddhistic, "Do not do unto others 
what you would not have them do unto you." To 
the Jew a brother meant a Jew, or one who belonged 
to the same sect as himself, Pharisee, Sadducee or 
Herodian. The idea that the Greek or Roman was 
his brother was one which had never entered his mind. 

But how different is the meaning which Jesus 
attaches to the idea. All men are brothers, whether 
as Paul says, "they be Jew or Greek, bond or free, 
they are all one man in Christ Jesus." Publican or 
sinner, Pharisee, Sadducee, Jew, Greek, Roman, how 
petty were these barriers to Christ. Man was man 
no matter how low his estate or what the color of 
his skin. "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," 
and that neighbor was the man in need of love and 
care, no matter who he might be. Love was to be 
the basic principle in the social order in the philosophy 

— One hundred twenty-four 



THE MIRACULOUS CHRIST 

of Jesus. Love of man for man, not that expressed 
by the selfish, inactive "golden rule" of Buddha, "Do 
not do unto others what you would not have them 
do unto you," but rather the active, positive, "All 
things therefore whatsoever ye would that men should 
do unto you even so do ye also unto them, for this 
is the law and the prophets." (Matt. 7:12.) This 
is the most glorious expression of the grandest con- 
ception of brotherhood that man has known. 
Hospitals, asylums, orphanages, associated charities, 
homes for the feeble-minded, and those otherwise un- 
fortunate, these and a thousand other institutions 
that make for the ennoblement of mankind have been 
made possible only when men accept Christ's philoso- 
phy of brotherhood. In his peerless sermon on the 
mount, the teacher proposes to change the social 
order by first making the fundamental change in man. 
Coextensive with the conversion and transforma- 
tion of the heart the Christian economic and social 
philosophy proposes to alleviate suffering and sor- 
row by purifying the environment of the sinner. 

Will this economic and social philosophy of Jesus 
stand the demands made by modern conditions? To- 
day, in the multitudinous discussions of the ills that 
oppress our social and economic order, the great lead- 
ers are more and more being brought to realize that 
only a reversion to the Christ ideals ; only a system of 
Society founded upon the Christian principle of love 
of man for man, can ever attain to the most glorious 
heights of perfection or long endure. 

Modern? His philosophy is the ever new phi- 

One hundred twenty-five — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

losophy, the one ever talked about, and in proportion- 
as men accept it in its purity in just that proportion 
are they happy and contented. His teaching will 
burn out the selfishness from the heart and will re- 
place it with a passionate desire to serve men. It 
will bring man at last to learn "that it is more blessed 
to give than to receive." How glorious would be 
that social order based upon brotherly love? Truly 
it would be as near an approach to Heaven as could 
be experienced in the present life. 

Another fact strikingly observable in the intel- 
lectual Jesus, and one in which he towers above all 
others, is the calm, majestic confidence of his teach- 
ing. How changeable are men. Now they believe 
one thing and teach it; tomorrow it is a new and 
strange doctrine to which they adhere. Jesus is al- 
ways the same. There is never one note of hesitancy. 
Never does he say, "I think" or "I opine." Not for 
a moment does he doubt his message. He always 
speaks with authority and, in the words of Napoleon, 
"Gives no other reason than those tremendous words, 
'I am God'." One of the great quartette of his 
biographers aptly said of him, "The multitudes were 
astonished at his doctrine, for he taught them as one 
having authority and not as their scribes." As the 
cultured, scholarly Nicodemus comes into his pres- 
ence he reverently greets him with the words, "Rab- 
bi, we know thou art a Teacher come from God." 
(John 3:2.) Of all teachers, Jesus was the Master; 
of all philosophers he was the Prince. 

Intellectually then he is not the product of his 

— One hundred twenty-six 



THE MIRACULOUS CHRIST 

age. Nothing which preceded him is adequate to 
explain the keenness of his mind ; the magnitude of 
his mental grasp. The harsh, barren philosophies 
which antedated his could in no way have been the 
ancestors of those wonderful, hope-inspiring, life- 
giving teachings upon which, for two thousand years, 
men have been trying to build their orders, social, 
economic and political, and by which they have been 
endeavoring to regulate life and conduct. 

2. Morally Christ was not a product of his time. 
It is doubtful if there has ever been an age of his- 
tory so immoral and dissolute as the age of Christ. 
It is difficult to determine which had fallen the deep- 
est into the horrible mire; Jew, Greek or Roman. It 
was the day of the revolting, gluttonous, and licentious 
revels of the Caesars. It was the age when even 
the rites of worship performed at the shrines of the 
gods were absolutely unnamable because of their 
vileness. It was the Epicurean age; a follower of 
the hilarious dictum, '%et us eat, drink and be merry, 
for tomorrow we die." Purity was laughed at; 
chastity was sneeringly scorned. A brief enumeration 
of a few of the crying sins of the time will serve to 
emphasize our meaning. 

Of the Greeks, pride of intellect was one of the 
most petted sins. Oh, how they loved to boast of 
their intellectual attainments. How they delighted to 
parade their knowledge before the eyes of the world. 
The egotistical philosophers of Mars Hill greeting 

One hundred twenty-seven — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

Paul with sarcastic questionings are illustrations of 
men afflicted with this sin. 

Christ, the teacher of teachers, the philosopher of 
philosophers, the possessor of the mightiest mind of 
the age comes not with words of pomp and the 
manner of an egotist but with calm and humble maj- 
esty he quietly inculcates the eternal truth of God. 

The chief sin of the Roman was pride of power. 
He gloried in a mighty army or anything that 
showed power and strength. For things intellectual 
he cared not a whit. When Christ talks to Pilate 
about truth, the Roman indifferently asks, "What is 
truth?" In Achaia, Gallio, when importuned by the 
Jews to judge concerning Paul's offense, as they 
charged against the law, remarks, "I am not 
minded to be a judge in these matters." And Luke 
goes on to say of him, "Gallio cared for none of these 
things." (Acts 18:17.) Matters of truth, art, or 
beauty were of but little moment to the Roman; he 
was interested rather in those things by means of 
which he could increase his empire or enhance his 
power. So long as a man obeyed the laws and paid 
his taxes, the Romans left him unmolested in matters 
of religion and all those things that pertain to the 
mind. 

And was not Jesus a personage of power? He 
who could heal the sick, give sight to the blind, still 
the tempest, or raise the dead, if right there be in 
pride of power, had he not that right? He who 
could suffer the scourge or endure the cross without 
a murmur, was he not a man of strength? But 

— One hundred twenty-eight 



THB MIRACULOUS CHRIST 

how happy should be the Christian of this fact; there 
is not one word in all the history of Jesus of boast- 
ing because of his power. The most profound humil- 
ity and simplicity accompanied his every act, whether 
it be to still the lashing waves of angry Galilee with 
the calm command, "Peace be still," or the cry to 
the man in the tomb, "Lazarus, come forth." 

Charity was a virtue practically unknown at the 
time of Jesus. The unfortunates of earth were out- 
casts. For them there was no love or words of cheer 
and hope. The treatment of those afflicted with the 
dread disease of leprosy illustrates the cruel, harsh 
temper of the age. The leper was forced to live 
like the wild beasts of the field, in the tombs or other 
places far removed from the homes of men. The 
weird, wild cry, "Unclean! Unclean!" as the poor 
wretch of rotting flesh and decaying bone fled in 
terror at the approach of the stranger, was the hope- 
less cry of the outcast, the unloved and uncared for. 
The blind and the lame were accorded almost as 
harsh treatment. The beautiful meaning of charity 
and pity to those less fortunate, that virtue which 
we today guard as a priceless heritage, was given to 
the world, first, by Jesus. The incident of the heal- 
ing of the leper as Christ descended from the moun- 
tain after the delivery of his memorable sermon is 
one of the grandest pictures of sublime charity that 
has ever been witnessed. The leper prostrates him- 
self before the Saviour with the wailing, pleading 
cry, "Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean!" 
What a revolting spectacle he must have presented ! 

One hundred twenty-nine — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

Perhaps one arm gone, or his face so eaten by the 
disease that it looked like one great whitened sore; 
the hair prematurely white, coarse and long. We 
can see the disciples and the multitude shudder and 
shrink away, or begin to gather stones to hurl at the 
beast and drive him from their midst. But Jesus, the 
Matchless Son of Love, the One of perfect com- 
passion, leans forward and before the very eyes of 
the breath-startled watchers, actually touches the 
quivering, frightened form, uttering as he does so 
those blessed words, "I will, be thou made clean." 

One other incident illustrative of Christ's beauti- 
ful charity toward all is the case of the woman taken 
in the very act of adultery. As the terrified creature, 
writhing in the first agony of detection, is dragged 
before the Master, expecting nothing but his censure 
and condemnation to death by the brutal method of 
stoning, she hears a message which illumines the 
darkened caverns of her soul with a new and glori- 
ous hope. What a portrait this scene ! The old age 
is contrasted with the new ; the dark, unpitying faces 
of those hypocritical, lustful Pharisees as they stand 
demanding the death of the woman of sin, contrasted 
with the beautiful, pitying countenance of the man of 
compassion as he shields and protects her. 

See those "whited tombs" slink like frightened 
curs from the stinging invitation, "Let him that is 
without sin among you cast the first stone at her." 
(John 8:3-11.) The blind, the lame, the dumb, the 
maimed and the leprous; how they hailed, with joy, 
the coming of the Man of Galilee, because they knew 

— One hundred thirty 



THE MIRACULOUS CHRIST 

his ministrations were inspired by a holy compassion 
and love. Christ's charity could never have been 
the product of his harsh, unsympathetic age. 

The caste system with all its attendant evils was 
also one of the curses of the age of Christ's advent. 
It was the day of Jew and Greek, Barbarian and 
Roman; Pharisee and Sadducee; publican and sinner. 
And the lines of caste were drawn with a rigidity 
which to our democratic age would be incompre- 
hensible. The Jew would sooner die than to eat 
with the Gentile. The Roman considered the bar- 
barian a being almost akin to an animal. When 
Jesus comes he transgresses all the laws of caste. He 
was pre-eminently the cosmopolite. Fiercely the 
Jewish leaders murmured against him, "He eateth 
with Publicans and sinners." He could converse with 
ease and amazing comprehension with the learned 
doctors in the temple or the cultivated Nicodemus ; 
or in simple parables he could make known to the 
unlettered fishermen the hidden things of God. With- 
out a qualm he could talk to the adulterous woman 
of Samaria, or in compassion restore to health the 
daughter of the gentile Syrophcenician. The petty 
barriers of race, sect or caste were to him non-exist- 
ent. Man was man, lost and in need of a world 
Saviour, no matter what his distinguished racial char- 
acteristics might be. Christ was the cosmopolite, the 
democrat, "the one man for the all men." 

Another of the sins widely prevalent in Jesus' day, 
and paralyzing upon the peoples of his time, was the 
sin of licentiousness. Domestic infidelity was ram- 

One hundred thirty- one — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

pant. Blindness, and every form of decrepitude ex- 
isted as the terrible results of promiscuous cohabita- 
tion and wicked sexual indulgence. The conscience 
of the people had become seared so that the sin was 
looked upon with cool indifference. Even great and 
noted men kept their concubines without one word 
of rebuke from the public which glutted itself with the 
same damning sin. The brilliant Socrates could, with 
impunity, cohabit in lustful indulgence with the volup- 
tuous Athenian courtesan Aspasia without provoking 
one word of censure. At the times of the great feasts 
the palaces of the Caesars were described as disgust- 
ing hells of prostitution. The sacred groves of 
Daphne, and scores of other infamous resorts, had, 
from places of rest and worship, degenerated into 
veritable brothels where the so-called "pure virgins" 
ministered to the blistering passions of drink-crazed 
men. To be pure was a condition so unknown that 
when the Christians met secretly for worship, they 
were accused by the Romans of meeting for immoral 
purposes, and of eating the children born of these 
meetings. The very fact that assemblies met se- 
cretly was enough to inspire suspicion. Others did 
these things and why not the Christians ? Thus deep- 
ly in the filthy mire wallowed the nations at the time 
of Christ. 

The remarkable purity of the life of Jesus stands 
out above the sordid immoralities of his day like a 
flashing beacon on hills of darkness. Never has there 
been such a life of spotless piety. In admiration and 
devotion Emerson says, "Jesus is the most perfect of 

— One hundred thirty-two 



THE MIRACULOUS CHRIST 

all men that have yet appeared." Even the Pharisees, 
so contentious about legalistic matters, could find 
nothing impure in his personal life. On one occasion 
Jesus asks them, "Which of you convinceth me of 
sin?" To the question they vouchsafed no answer, 
for they were able to find nothing amiss within him. 
Pilate, so well versed in the weighing of evidence, 
and the hearing of testimony, after a searching ex- 
amination, could only say, "I find no (fault or) 
crime in him." Judas, in the throes of remorse for 
his awful deed of betrayal, cries wildly as he hurls 
the now detested silver at the feet of the priests and 
scribes, "I have sinned in that I have betrayed in- 
nocent blood." Upon quaking Calvary, as the Christ 
breaths his last sigh of agony, the Roman centurion, 
the officer of the execution, exclaims with deep con- 
viction, "Truly this was the son of God." (Matt. 
27 :54. ) His wonderfully immaculate life could not 
have been the product of that wicked age in which he 
was born; that age so notoriously disregardful of 
personal righteousness. 

The idea of forgiveness was one foreign to all 
classes at the time of Jesus. It was the age of "an 
eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." That man 
was effeminate who would allow a slight or insult 
to go by unavenged. It was a mark of manly strength 
to make an enemy pay for his wrongs, and in his 
own blood. The virtue of forgiveness seems not to 
have been known. 

Jesus taught that not only were men to forgive 
wrongs committed by friends, but to go also to the 

One hundred thirty-three — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

almost unattainable heights of forgiving our enemies; 
those who wrong with intent to wrong and who gloat 
with satisfaction at the pain which the wrong inflicts. 
Not only did he teach this beautiful, but to the most 
of us, hard to receive lesson, but how wonderfully he 
exemplified it in his own conduct. With the scorch- 
ing Judean sun beating upon his festering wounds, 
every one of which had become a dead weight of 
agony, with a howling, jeering, brutal-faced mob, 
spitting their foul slime upon him; his enemies all of 
them, gloating in every moment of his excruciating 
suffering, he raises his blood-stained face to the 
darkening clouds with the pitying, compassionate en- 
treaty, "Father, forgive them, they know not what 
they do." A profound astonished silence followed 
this wonderful prayer. Wide-eyed each looked into 
the face of his neighbor asking, "What did he say? 
Did you hear him? Is he praying for us, and we 
his enemies?" They could not comprehend his 
meaning. That he should pray for his murderers, 
those who hated him, was to them the most astound- 
ing marvel. 

A lengthy enumeration of the shortcomings of 
Christ's age might here be listed but these already 
mentioned are adequate to illustrate sufficiently 
how wicked, depraved, licentious and cruel was the 
time. And think you that Christ, so humble while 
they were so proud; so charitable while they were 
so cruel ; so cosmopolitan, democratic while they 
were so caste bound; so spotlessly pure while they 
were rotten to the moral vitals; so forgiving while 

— One hundred thirty-four 



THB MIRACULOUS CHRIST 

they were so unforgiving; think you that in his 
marvelous life he could have been the product or 
child of an age such as his? Every known law of 
heredity and environment is silent and inactive in 
the case of Jesus. He is unlike his people in every 
respect. His tree was evil yet he as the supposed 
fruit was good. "An evil tree cannot bring forth 
good fruit, neither a good tree evil fruit." 

3. Spiritually Jesus was in no respect the product 
of his time. 

(1) Condition of his time spiritually. 

(a) Spirituality among the Greeks was at this 
time at a very low ebb. Faith in the old deities was 
breaking down, due to the undermining effects of the 
continued and determined attacks of Grecian philoso- 
phy. The withering blows of Socrates, Plato, 
Aristotle and the stoic Zeno, as well as those of the 
Epicureans, had well nigh destroyed all belief in the 
ancient gods. Religion had become more and more 
a matter of form. Sin consisted merely in igno- 
rance rather than any overt crime against the higher 
powers. Zeus, Hera, Apollo and all the rest of the 
inhabitants of Olympus were still revered but rather 
as we today reverence our national heroes than 
worshiped as gods. Coexistent with the decline of 
faith the wickedness of the time increased. Epicur- 
ean was the spirit of the age, "Let us have a good 
time now, for tomorrow we die." 

The spiritual conditions of the Romans was almost 
identical with that of the Greeks. Like the Greek, 
their religion was, "a polytheistic conception of the 

One hundred thirty- five — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

powers of nature based upon a semi-pantheistic con- 
ception of the world." They had the same gods and 
goddesses as their tutors, bearing, however, different 
names. Ever a religion of form anyway, in the time 
of Christ it had become even more formalistic due 
to the same damaging attacks of Grecian philosophy. 
Jupiter, Juno, Jove and the rest were still revered, 
but like the Grecian deities as national or historical 
characters rather than gods. One of the Roman 
orators about this time was vigorously applauded 
when he said, "The gods are dead." Religion had 
degenerated into simply a formal and faithful per- 
formance of the ancient rites. Sin consisted in the 
transgression of these formal laws or the failure to 
observe ritualism rather than the disobedience of a 
moral command. 

The Jews were as barren of spirituality as were 
either the Greeks or Romans. They were split up 
into various warring sects, each jealous for some 
peculiar phase of doctrine and all alike careless about 
matters of personal life. Like the Greeks and the 
Romans they were placing the emphasis upon the 
legalistic side of their religion. Their ritualism, their 
rites and ceremonies were the most gorgeous. The 
priesthood was proud, cultured and aristocratic. 
The outward form of piety was the condition most to 
be desired. To the Pharisee religion consisted in 
making long prayers before men or zealously ob- 
serving every law of the Sabbath. His hands must 
be washed in accordance with the traditions before he 
ate bread; always must he keep himself from the 

— One hundred thirty-six 



THE MIRACULOUS CHRIST 

contaminating presence of the despised Gentile. To 
take in his hard-heartedness the sustenance of widows 
and orphans or to commit unnamable impurities, these 
were considered entirely permissible, but the forms 
of religion must ever and in all places be rigidly ob- 
served. The statement of Paul exactly describes 
them when he speaks of those who "have the form of 
godliness without knowing the power thereof." 

How infinitely Jesus differs from his time 
spiritually. He relegates form to the background in 
all of his teaching. There is no religion known to 
men so devoid of formalism as pure Christianity. 
The organization of his church was majestically 
simple. No senates, councils, episcopacies or ecclesias- 
ticisms with dictatorial authority to rule over his 
people. He was to be their lawgiver and head. Two 
simple ordinances, Christian baptism and the me- 
morial supper were to be the only elements of worship 
partaking at all of the nature of rites or ceremonies. 
Beautiful in its majestic simplicity, wonderful in the 
fewness of its legalistic requirements, is the religion 
of the Christ. His was to be the religion of the heart ; 
the teaching that would transform the wicked life 
and rekindle the nobler fires of the soul in the sin- 
ner so long smouldering. How vehemently he ut- 
tered his woes against the Jews, "Woe unto you 
Scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye tithe mint and 
anise and cummin and have left undone the weightier 
matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith, but 
these ye ought to have done and not to have left the 
other undone. Ye blind guides that strain out the 

One hundred thirty-seven — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

gnat and swallow the camel." And in the remainder 
of the same chapter it is, Woe ! Woe ! Woe ! "Ye 
cleanse the outside of the cup and platter but within 
they are full from extortion and excess." He calls 
them, "whited sepulchres," outwardly beautiful and 
ornate, but within full of hypocrisy and iniquity, or 
"serpents and offspring of vipers." (Matt. 23 :23-34.) 
On another occasion, in despair, he cries out, "Well 
did Isaiah prophesy of you saying, This people honor- 
eth me with their lips, but their heart is far from 
me." (Matt. 15:8.) With Jesus, religion was to 
be a matter of the inside man, of the heart. "Thou 
blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup, and 
of the platter, that the outside thereof may become 
clean also" (Matt. 23:26), or "Blessed are the pure 
in heart for they shall see God" (Matt. 5:8.) Be- 
lief in him as the Saviour and King was to purify the 
heart and thus by cleansing the source from which 
the springs of conduct rise to transform the whole 
being. Peter before the Jerusalem council describes 
the glorious process when he says, "And he made no 
distinction between us and them, (Jew and Gentile) 
cleansing their hearts by faith." (Acts 15:9.) 
Jesus differed then from those of his time, Jews, 
Greeks and Romans, in that while they contended for 
the form of religion and practiced unrebuked shock- 
ing immoralities, he emphasized the heart change, pur- 
ity of life, and not only emphasized it in his teach- 
ing but practiced it, lived it. From a world, a desert 
as far as spirituality was concerned, this divine ex- 
ponent of the life of the Spirit, this one who taught 

— One hundred thirty-eight 



THE, MIRACULOUS CHRIST 

that men must be born anew by the birth of the 
spirit could not by any law, that man knows, have 
been produced. Such a result would have been as 
impossible as for a corrupt tree to bear perfect fruit. 

CONCLUSION. 

Truly conclusive is our proposition that not in 
any sense or respect was Christ the product of his 
time, intellectually, morally or spiritually, for in an 
age in which all men were conscious of a feeling of 
intellectual at-sea-ness, Christ, the calm, resolute, 
revolutionary philosopher, speaking with the author- 
ity of a God, appears ; in an age above all others char- 
acterized by moral dissolution and decay, Christ the 
pure and sinless, the "lily of the valley ,, and among 
ten thousand the fairest, suddenly emerges from the 
chaotic whirlpool of moral degradation like a morn- 
ing star from the deeps of night; in an age pre-emi- 
nently devoid of spirituality and pierced through and 
through by the arrows of doubt and skepticism, Jesus 
in the form of man with the soul of God arises amid 
the crumbling, rotting ruins of humanity as the new 
and blessed Hope of life, from the environs of death. 

If, according to all the laws of heredity and en- 
vironment, Christ is not the product of his time, he is 
himself a miracle, the miraculous projection of God's 
will and manifestation of his love into his time and 
for all time. He is therefore God's son, not a son, 
but the "only begotten son," God manifest in human 
flesh. There is but one way to consistently deny the 

One hundred thirty-nine — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS 

deity of Christ and that is to deny that he, as a man,, 
lived. If Jesus lived, then he is God's son; if he did 
not, then our grandest and noblest institutions are 
founded upon the most beautiful conception ever 
reached by man. It would take a Jesus to conceive 
of a Jesus. To deny Christ's historical character is 
as impossible as to deny the existence of night and 
day. He is history itself, the center, the point of 
convergence. Without him, what has been is but a 
hollow shell, impossible to understand or at all to 
rationalize. He is the heart and soul of it all, the 
Alpha and Omega, the first and the last. Let us 
conclude with the vitriol-tongued skeptic of France, 
Jean Ernest Renan, as in extolling Jesus, he says : 
"All history is incomprehensible without him. He 
created the object and fixed the starting point of the 
future faith of humanity. He is the incomparable 
man to whom the universal conscience has decreed 
the title, Son of God, and that with justice. In the 
first rank of this grand family of the true sons of God 
we must place Jesus. The highest consciousness of 
God which ever existed in the breast of humanity was 
that of Jesus. Repose now in thy glory, noble 
founder! Thy work is finished, thy divinity estab- 
lished. Thou shalt become the cornerstone of human- 
ity so entirely that to tear thy name from this world 
would rend it to its very foundations. Between thee 
and God there will be no longer any distinction. 
Complete conqueror of death, take possession of thy 
kingdom whither shall follow thee by the royal road 
which thou hast traced, ages of adoring worshipers. 

— One hundred forty 



THE MIRACULOUS CHRIST 

Whatever may be the surprises of the future Jesus 
will never be surpassed. His worship will grow young 
without ceasing; his legend will call forth tears with- 
out end; his sufferings will melt the noblest hearts 
and all ages will proclaim that among the sons of 
men there is none born greater than Jesus. Even 
Paul is not Jesus. How far removed are we all 
from thee, dear Master! Where is thy mildness, thy 
poetry ? Thou to whom a flower didst bring pleas- 
ure and ecstacy, dost thou recognize as thy disciples, 
these wranglers, these men furious over their pre- 
rogatives, and desiring that everything should be giv- 
en to them? They are men; thou art a God." 



Finis. 



One hundred forty-one — 



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